


broken families in broken homes

by almostannette



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Imprisonment, Minor Character Death, The Author regrets everything and nothing at the same time, Unplanned Pregnancy, angst central - Freeform, sad but hopeful?, this fic is on hiatus due to current events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 06:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23346955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostannette/pseuds/almostannette
Summary: “Here it says ‘missing’,” she’d babbled hysterically, five months ago. She kept pointing to the letter Waverly had received from the Russians after Illya had failed to return from a reconnaissance mission to Vladivostok. “That’s not… it can’t mean he’s—"“Gaby,” Waverly had said while holding her hand, “I don’t want you to indulge in any kind of false hope. ‘Agent Kuryakin is missing, presumed dead’ – that’s KGB parlance for ‘We’re quite certain he’s not coming back.’”A few weeks after that, she’d started getting morning sickness.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller, eventual Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller/Napoleon Solo
Comments: 129
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This little fic is pretty angsty, but then again, I'm feeling pretty angsty due to Covid-19, so let's call it catharsis, shall we?

**1964, Somewhere in the United States of America**

Gaby has no memories of her mother.

Luise Teller had died during an aerial attack on Berlin, which had been a part of the Allies' strategic bombing campaign.

Gaby had been too young to even remember her.

All she had were a few faded photographs of a woman who had the same nose, eyes, and jawline as she did.

It hadn’t been nearly enough.

Now, she doesn’t even have the photographs anymore – she had to leave them behind when Napoleon Solo had swooped in and got her over the wall.

After her mother had died, it had just been her and her father.

And after the war, it had just been her.

She’d been told her father had died while he was imprisoned for having designed weapons systems for Hitler’s government. No sugarcoating anymore - essentially, her father had been a war criminal.

It had been difficult to accept, but she had done so. Really, she hadn’t been the only war orphan at the time. She was in good company in East Germany.

Her foster family had taken good care of her. She couldn’t complain.

They hadn’t been as affectionate with her as she might have wished for, but she had a roof over her head and enough food to eat, so really, what more could she have asked for?

It had been infinitely better than any of the state-sponsored orphanages.

She’d been happy, she thinks, as happy as the circumstances allowed. Of course, that had been before Alexander Waverly had turned her life upside down and everything and everyone that came after that…

But  _ now _ ?

She ought to be happy.

She’s living in a nice, large house in the suburbs.

More than that, she’s living in  _ America _ , the country they’d all dreamed of back in East Berlin.

She’s financially taken care of and doesn’t have to share her living space with a man she secretly despises - which is more than she can say of some of her neighbors.

Her father must have led a similar life after the war.

He hadn’t died in prison as she’d been told. He’d been offered a similar deal - a house in the suburbs, a new identity, financial freedom, in exchange for his technical expertise.

The Americans had called it Operation Paperclip.

Udo Teller switched allegiances just as quickly as he forgot about his daughter. His daughter, who’s taken the same deal, just so she didn’t have to return to East Germany.

In America, she can simply walk to the grocery store and buy anything she wants. There’s no rationing, no need to queue up for hours, no need to bribe the clerks… it seems like paradise to her. She doubts her neighbors stuck in their loveless marriages could ever understand.

_ He _ would have understood, she thinks, putting a hand on her ever-growing belly. Illya would have understood.

“Here it says ‘ _ missing’ _ ,” she’d babbled hysterically, five months ago. She kept pointing to the letter Waverly had received from the Russians after Illya had failed to return from a reconnaissance mission to Vladivostok. “That’s not… it can’t mean he’s—"

“Gaby,” Waverly had said while holding her hand, “I don’t want you to indulge in any kind of false hope. ‘Agent Kuryakin is missing, presumed dead’ – that’s KGB parlance for ‘We’re quite certain he’s not coming back.’”

A few weeks after that, she’d started getting morning sickness.

Tears well up in her eyes, clouding her vision.

What would it be like if things were different? If Illya were with her…she’d trade the nice house in the American suburbs with all the amenities offered by Western capitalism for a cramped apartment in East Berlin or Moscow, if only she could get Illya in return.

She’d give everything for the bare minimum.

Now, she has so much more than she ever hoped for, and she feels like she’s suffocating beneath the weight of it all.

She sits on the sofa in the living room, absent-mindedly watching the flickering images of the TV screen.

The baby kicks and, holding her rounded belly, Gaby starts sobbing.

Eventually, she’ll have to tell her child that they’ll never be able to meet their father.

All Illya’s child will have of him are a few faded photographs.

It won’t be nearly enough.

* * *

**1964, Somewhere in Siberia**

In a labor camp specifically designed to house dissidents and political prisoners, the inmates are working either in woodcutting or wood processing. Wood processing is rotten work, but at least it's better than woodcutting.

You don’t want to be assigned to the wood cutting brigade. It means you have to go to the forest, which is far from the rat-infested and lice-ridden barracks of the camp. In earlier times, the forest used to start right next to the camp, but not anymore. A whole previous generation of prisoners had been unleashed upon the forest, cutting down tree after tree.

Now, to get to the forest, the wood cutting brigade must walk much further to their place of work than their comrades assigned to work in the wood processing factory. Consequently, if you’re assigned to the wood cutting brigade, it means you’ll be among the last people to get back to camp at the end of the day. You’re lucky if you get leftovers at dinnertime.

However, no matter whether you’re assigned to the wood cutting or the wood processing brigade, one thing stays the same. The days bleed into each other until you slowly but surely lose your sense of time. Everything is designed to make your life in the camp as monotonous as possible, until you followed the perverted routine to a T, spending every day of your imprisonment doing the exact same things. The camp is supposed to make you jaded and dull. 

The only change you could hope for was being assigned to the other brigade.

Wood processing if you play by the rules, woodcutting if you’re branded as a trouble-maker.

Illya Kuryakin has been assigned to the wood cutting brigade ever since he arrived at the camp six months ago. Apparently, the Party hadn't been too pleased that he was working for U.N.C.L.E. now.

On his first day in camp, his name had caused a few raised eyebrows amongst the guards.

“Kuryakin? Related to  _ that _ Kuryakin?” they asked.

As it turns out, Illya is being imprisoned at the same camp to which they’d sent his father. Someone in the Kremlin had thought it was a good joke. They’d probably smiled when they put their sign of approval on Illya’s prison sentence.

The camp had already broken and killed one Kuryakin, why not another one?

Illya had only been ten years old when they’d taken his father away and he’d been forced to watch his mother strip herself of every last shred of dignity to ensure their survival.

Some of his fellow prisoners mutter the names of their wives or children to themselves like a mantra. It keeps them sane and gives them a reason to stay alive.

Sometimes, at night, Illya lays awake in the too-small, cramped bed in the unheated barrack, listening to the murmur of his barrack mates, a mumbled cacophony composed of the names of far-away loved ones left behind. He wonders if his father did the same thing. Twenty years ago, had Nikolay Kuryakin lain in an identical bed at nighttime, whispering the names of his wife and son over and over again?

Illya keeps repeating Gaby’s name like a morbid chant until everyone is sick of hearing it, until it barely holds any meaning anymore. It’s equal parts comforting and upsetting in a way Illya could never hope to put into words.

At least he knows Gaby will be taken care of, Waverly and Solo would never leave her hanging. Not like the Communist Party, which dropped his mother like a hot potato, only to turn her into a plaything for its functionaries. Gaby will have the support she needs and deserves and… well, there’s another difference between Gaby and his mother.

Gaby can start over in an environment in which she’ll be allowed to make her own choices and she only has to look after herself.

At least Illya only disappointed Gaby… they both know what it’s like to grow up with absentee fathers who’d sold their soul to serve a brutal regime, with all the perks and privileges, as Solo had so eloquently put it. The only difference was that Gaby’s father had been lucky he’d been smart enough to be valuable for the Americans.

If the Soviets had gotten hold of Dr. Teller before the Americans, they would have offered him a job all the same but the job wouldn’t have come with a nice house in the suburbs, a company car and a fat paycheck. It would have been a labor camp much like this one – the only difference being that the prisoners were not forced into woodcutting, but into developing rocket technology.

Gaby is smart, strong, and resourceful.

She’ll be alright.

At least until he can get back to her.

And until then, Illya bides his time, analyzing the camp structures and finding weaknesses in the organization.

The camp has already broken and killed one Kuryakin. It won’t break another one.

The memory of Gaby gives him the strength needed to survive.

Illya hopes it will be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few people were asking me whether I intended to continue this fic, and well, inspiration struck!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the new chapter! :)

**1964, Somewhere in the United States of America**

Napoleon has a talent – he can make doing the wrong thing look effortless and glamorous. Growing up in the shadow of his older brother, he didn’t have much of a choice. When Napoleon was born, the role of the family’s golden child had already been taken. He became the black sheep by default.

He’s played that role ever since.

The only thing that’s changed is that, over the years, he’s learned to remedy his shortcomings by hiding behind a façade. He’s attractive, eloquent, and charming.

Most of the time, that’s all you need.

Napoleon isn’t sure if that speaks to his qualities or if it reveals an ugly truth about society.

Probably both.

Maybe that’s why he’d taken to spying so easily. An assignment is always just another role to play, just another façade to put up. Napoleon has gotten so good at not letting anyone see through the walls he’s put up around himself, it’s sometimes difficult to remember who he actually is.

Especially in the quiet moments.

He fears those quiet moments.

For the past six months, his whole life seems to have consisted of nothing but quiet moments.

Napoleon is elbow-deep in soap suds and dirty dishes, the aftermath of yet another attempt at cooking a dinner Gaby would like. So far, he hasn’t succeeded and it’s a little disheartening, considering he’s almost out of recipes at this point.

He’s trying to pick up the pieces left in the emotional destruction Illya’s death has caused, but he’s apparently doing a rotten job. It’s doubly frustrating since Napoleon isn’t typically used to  _ not _ being good at something.

It’s a bitter work.

A sound from the living room interrupts his thoughts. He dries his hands on his apron, abandoning his place at the kitchen sink. Opening the door connecting the kitchen to the living room, he finds a sobbing Gaby.

“What?” she croaks, wiping at her eyes. “Are you going to ask if I feel alright?”

“No,” he says, approaching her. “That would be a bit superfluous, don’t you think?”

Gaby lets out a sound that’s a mixture of a laugh and a huff. At least it wasn’t another sob, and given his previous track-record, Napoleon already counts that as a win.

He sits down next to her on the sofa, careful to give her space. “Is there anything you need?” he asks. “Can I do anything to help you?”

‘Say yes,’ he thinks. ‘Please say yes.’

He wants to believe his efforts aren’t misguided. He wants to believe he’s doing the right thing for once in his life and not be in the wrong place at the wrong time like he always seems to be.

He’s played so many roles throughout his life – he’s been a thief, a conman, a womanizer, a soldier, a spy… and yet, this is the first time he’s trying to be a  _ friend _ , and he’s failing miserably.

What does Gaby think of him? He must appear so different from the man she thought she knew, the man who’d strolled into her late foster father’s garage and arrogantly demanded she’d tell him everything she knew about her father, before offering to get her over the wall if she only trusted him.

“Do you need anything?” Napoleon repeats softly, carefully.

Gaby doesn’t reply, at least not verbally. Instead, she pulls him close, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

He gently wraps his arms around her. Looking down on the young woman in his arms, he’s surprised by how small and fragile she appears.

Maybe he can be strong enough for both of them.

“It’s going to be alright,” Napoleon says, caressing her hair and her back, as Gaby’s body is being wracked by sobs.

* * *

Gaby closes her eyes and tries to relax her breathing. Napoleon’s body is warm, and solid, and strong, and she feels safe in a way she hasn’t felt since Illya disappeared.

She can smell Napoleon’s aftershave and finds herself greedily inhaling the scent, leaning into the embrace as though Napoleon could be her anchor, could save her from drowning in the maelstrom of feelings threatening to pull her under at any given moment.

Her face is hidden in the crook where Napoleon’s neck met his shoulders. Thank God she hasn’t bothered with applying make-up that day, otherwise, she would have smeared all of it into the fabric of Napoleon’s dress shirt by now.

The baby is getting restless, undoubtedly sensing her distress.

“ _ Ich bin für dich da, wenn du mich brauchst _ ,” Napoleon says in German, as though he suspects she needs to hear reassurances in a language that’s familiar to her, in a language that feels close to home.

His voice is deep and calming, and being so close to him, she can feel each breath he takes as he wipes away the tears from her cheeks.

His other hand is busy steadying her back, moving in soothing circles.

Her tears started to subside.

“ _ Möchtest du darüber reden? _ ” Napoleon asks gently. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Gaby mumbles.

“Should I leave you alone, then?”

She stiffens at his suggestion. “Don’t go,” she begs. “I don’t want to be alone right now. I just… I think I want a distraction.”

Napoleon hums.

The sound makes his ribcage vibrate and a small shiver runs down Gaby’s spine.

“It’s alright, I won’t leave you alone then. How about we just watch some TV after I’ve finished doing the dishes?”

Gaby nods. “Can I help?” she asks. “With the dishes, I mean?”

“Sure.”

Relatively mindless tasks, like doing the dishes, keep her thoughts occupied. She forces herself to concentrate on the task at hand. Whenever her mind feels inclined to wander into a painful territory, she focuses on Napoleon instead, rather than think about the ghost of the man she can’t bring back from the dead.

Tears start clouding her vision.

No, she tells herself and blinks them away.

Focus on the task at hand.

She picks up another plate and starts drying it off.

“If I were you, I’d invest in a dishwasher. What do you think?” Napoleon asks, shaking Gaby out of her thoughts.

“I suppose I should,” she finds herself agreeing with him, wondering when exactly she’s gotten used to the domesticity of their situation. When exactly has she gotten used to having Napoleon around? When has she stopped being exasperated by his outrageousness?

When has he stopped being outrageous, as though he could sense that Gaby doesn’t care for such displays of fake bravado?

She asks herself when, exactly, she’s realized that much of Napoleon’s bravado is, in fact, a façade.

“Then we’ll go dishwasher shopping next,” he says with a grin.

The women in the neighborhood are giving Gaby jealous looks whenever they spot her with Napoleon. In a way, she’s come to understand them. Napoleon  _ is  _ an attractive man, after all. If you are into that sort of man, she quickly amends. Which she absolutely isn’t.

Gaby’s stomach does a funny thing. She chooses to attribute it to her pregnancy.

“We will,” she mumbles and tries very hard to ignore how warm her face feels all of a sudden. It’s probably just another pregnancy thing.

* * *

**1964, Somewhere in Western Siberia**

Illya has started having trouble keeping track of the time. The only thing reminding him of the passage of time is the changing of the seasons. He used to think summer at the camp was unbearable. How naïve he’d been back then because the advent of winter had brought bitter cold, frostbite, and heavy snowfall.

The rations of slightly moldy rye bread and watery soup are just enough to keep a prisoner from starving to death. Every day, Illya wolves down the bread and guzzles the soup, but every day, he grows a little bit weaker.

The strength he worked so hard to develop, it’s fading fast at the camp, and Illya can feel himself become scrawny and haggard. The meager rations make it difficult to think clearly, to focus on anything besides meeting the daily output target at the wood cutting site.

He thinks of fleeing the camp less and less. Sometimes, he fears he dreamed it all. Perhaps there has never been an organization called U.N.C.L.E. Perhaps he’s made it all up since he’s come to the camp? Maybe he’s been arrested for a wholly different transgression and he just can’t remember it, because the camp has stripped him of his sanity? And it  _ does  _ sound insane, doesn’t it? KGB and CIA teaming up, while also getting MI6 involved without even knowing it…

No.

_ No _ …

It was real, Illya tells himself.

It must have been real.

And so, he takes whatever links he still has to the past and consciously reminds himself of it whenever he can.

The color of the snow is the same as the mussed bedsheets in the hotel room in Istanbul after he and Gaby made love for the first time.

The color of the earth is the color of Gaby’s hair as it cascades down her shoulders…

And the color of the sky reminds him of Solo’s bright blue eyes; bright blue except for that one small speck of brown, marring his otherwise perfect features.

After that last observation, Illya feels a pang of  _ something _ , but he’s not particularly inclined to put a name to the feeling. Anyway, what’s the use of wondering when there’s a daily output target he has to meet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this one will eventually be another entry in the "Annette can't resist the power of OT3"-list haha


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I've got another little chapter for you! <3

**1964, Somewhere in the United States of America**

He mustn’t get emotionally involved, Napoleon tells himself.

But it’s a little too late for that, isn’t it? He’s already getting emotionally invested, a little more each time when he tries his hardest to cheer Gaby up, to make her smile, even for just a second.

Is it perhaps more than just…? Gaby is his partner at work, perhaps even his friend. Not that Napoleon has much experience with friendship, but he knows one thing for certain: Fighting alongside someone, risking your life while they risk theirs in pursuit of a common goal… that has a way of speeding things up.

If they’re friends, then there ought to be nothing wrong with comforting Gaby when she’s depressed. So why does he feel like he’s crossing a line whenever they hug? Why does he feel like a traitor when he tries to find the right words to comfort her? He’s painfully aware that he’s the wrong man for the task, but if the right man were around, Gaby wouldn’t have a reason to turn to Napoleon for consolation in the first place.

If he’s perfectly honest with himself (and speaking from experience, the only person Napoleon Solo has ever been perfectly honest with is Napoleon Solo), it’s not as though he never considered it. He might have  _ pretended _ not to notice whenever Illya or Gaby snuck in an appreciative glance at Napoleon’s form and he acted oblivious when the glances turned into lingering looks…

Usually, Napoleon knows how to seize those opportunities, knows what to say and what to do to fan the flames.

And if the mission in Rome had gone exactly as planned, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Not during the mission, of course, not when Gaby and Illya had to pretend to be engaged. Providing a convincing explanation as to how exactly an East German car mechanic and a Russian architect had fallen in love was tricky enough. It would have only added further complications had either the East German car mechanic or the Russian architect chosen to cheat with an American antique dealer.

So, Napoleon had waited, at least until the mission had been officially over. Back then, Napoleon assumed they’d just had a few hours until they’d have to say goodbye for good. He decided to take his chances, and it just so happened Illya was the first to knock on his hotel room door. Not necessarily with the same intentions as Napoleon, as he’d later found out, but at least Peril had waited long enough to kill him for Napoleon to return his watch back to him.

After that, it had been easy to convince Peril to loosen up a little, have a drink with him, and celebrate their little adventure with a balcony bonfire. In his humble opinion, Napoleon had been making good progress, when Waverly showed up and told them they were going to be a team from now on.

That effectively put an end to Napoleon’s attempts at seduction. It would have been one thing to give Illya and/or Gaby a few unforgettable hours, before disappearing from their lives again. But it’s quite another thing to actually…

Well, he may not look it, but Napoleon is a realist. He knows he is a man for a night or two, a few weeks at most. Never long-term. He always makes sure his partners know that in advance, he never wants to raise expectations he can’t exceed.

So, he encouraged Illya and Gaby to get together. He didn’t know whether they’d be any good for each other, but then again, with his track record at relationships, who was Napoleon to judge?

Third wheel wasn’t his favorite position in the world, far from it, but at least he could rest easy knowing he wasn’t doing anything to ruin Illya’s and Gaby’s chance at happiness.

So, Napoleon kept his distance, because sooner or later, Napoleon ruins everything he touches, and he didn’t want to ruin this, too.

He wants to do the right thing.

He’ll just mess up irreparably, should he get involved.

He always messes up, sooner or later.

But sometimes, late at night, keeping his distance doesn’t feel like the right thing anymore.

* * *

**1964, Somewhere in Western Siberia**

The prisoners divide up their free days for the Christmas holiday. Catholics and Protestants celebrate in December, Orthodox Christians celebrate in January. Not that it’s much of a holiday, or that they can really celebrate, but the prisoners stay in the barracks for a whole day, while their barrack mates work double shifts to make up for them. Illya is not religious – he couldn’t have been observant of any religion and work for the KGB, he’d have been fired faster than he could have said “Amen”.

But he’s also not going to give up the possibility of having a free day; you just don’t pass up such opportunities. When you have to fight for every scrap of food and every minute of sleep, you defend such luxuries fiercely.

Since he’s not religious anyway, he doesn’t have a preference for a date on which to celebrate the holiday. He chooses December 25 solely because somewhere out there, on the other side of the world, Gaby and Solo will be celebrating Christmas at the same time.

And Illya desperately wants to feel connected to them, in any small way possible.

He’s grasping at straws, he knows, but what else can he do? He used to be so hopeful when he arrived at the camp, he thought he’d be able to escape, fight his way past the guards if necessary… but he’s quickly realized that he’s severely outnumbered and even if he were to escape, where would he go? He doesn’t even know where the camp is located – are there human settlements nearby or are they completely hidden away somewhere in the vast Russian wilderness?

The possibility of escape hasn’t occupied his thoughts in a while, not in the harsh Siberian winter and in the pitiful conditions in the camp. The only things on his mind are food, sleep, and the unrelenting cold, which seeps into his very being.

Illya doesn’t know that, while he wastes away a little more each day, Gaby’s belly is growing a little rounder each day, filled with the life he helped create.

If he knew, perhaps he wouldn’t think of giving up quite so often, fantasizing of putting down his ax and just laying down in the snow in the middle of the forest, waiting for the end to come.

Ironically, Illya has never felt closer to his father than in those moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, you can expect Christmas from Gaby's POV :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, this chapter features Christmas from Gaby's POV

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1964**

Gaby’s driving home from U.N.C.L.E.’s Christmas party. It’s only the second Christmas party in the organization’s history, and the atmosphere at the two parties couldn’t have been more different.

The previous year, they’d all had a blast. Even Illya had (publicly!) admitted that he was enjoying himself, which was a rarity.

Gaby glances at the man in the passenger seat.

As far as Gaby could judge, Napoleon must have had a  _ very _ good time at last year’s party. They’d danced together and she’d been pleasantly surprised to discover that Napoleon was almost able to keep up with her on the dancefloor. (In addition to that, she could feel Illya’s gaze was glued to them the entire time she’d been dancing with Napoleon. Somehow, that had made it even more fun.)

After that, Napoleon had disappeared for about an hour with a cute redhead from R&D in tow. Upon his reappearance (slightly disheveled hair, kiss-swollen lips), he’d had the nerve to challenge Waverly to a drinking competition. Napoleon lost because it turned out Waverly had a liver made of steel.

This year, the party’s atmosphere was subdued – all of U.N.C.L.E. was still recovering from losing their first agent so soon after the organization’s inception. To Gaby, it felt as though most of her colleagues had been walking on eggshells, trying to avoid the elephant… or well, the pregnant woman in the room.

They’ve arrived at home and Gaby parks the car in the driveway. After entering the house, the two of them are greeted by the sight of the small Christmas tree they put up and decorated a few days ago. They haven’t exchanged presents yet, but Gaby guesses Napoleon will give her something for the baby – all her colleagues have done so, after all.

The more the nursery starts filling up, the more real it all starts to feel… Gaby isn’t sure if she’s ready for being a mother and she doesn’t know if she can even do it all on her own.

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts and finds Napoleon in the kitchen. He’s mixing a drink with a look of utmost concentration on his face, as though he’s trying to defuse a bomb.

“Do you want a drink, too?” he asks without looking up. “I’ll make you a non-alcoholic one if you’d like.”

“Please,” she says. “You know, I’m surprised you didn’t stay at the party longer. No cute redheads this year?”

Napoleon stops what he’s doing for a moment and gives her an amused look. “Just who do you think I am?”

“An incorrigible Lothario?” Gaby offers.

His mouth twitches into a smile. “I haven’t heard that one before, I’ll give you that,” he says. “But I’d rather be spending my time with you and not with any redhead, no matter how cute they might be,” he adds with a grin and returns to mixing their drinks.

Gaby narrows her eyes. His nonchalant tone sounds fake, and she senses he’s keeping something from her. Just what it is, she’s not entirely sure.

She returns to the living room as though thinking might be easier when the source of her confusion isn’t around. It’s so  _ unlike _ Napoleon to do the responsible thing and opt for an early night when he could have been making the most of the evening. So why did he…

Napoleon enters the living room, drinks in hand. Gaby quickly masks her suspicion as she takes her drink. As she takes a sip, her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Napoleon has managed to create a drink that’s exactly to her taste – fruity, but not too sweet, with a decidedly citrusy and minty undertone.

“What did you get this year?” Napoleon asks, gesturing to the sizable gift basket Gaby received from their colleagues.

“Well, what do you think?” she retorts. “Stuff for the baby, of course. That’s what I get for saying I don’t want a baby shower.” She listlessly rifles through the gift basket. “Huh, a baby name book. I suppose I can use this?”

“Just don’t name the kid after long-dead conquerors,” he drawls. “They might grow up to resent you a little for it.”

Gaby grins. “Speaking from experience,  _ Napoleon _ ? What did you get?”

Napoleon hasn’t received a gift basket, like Gaby, but she’s seen Waverly take him aside for a few minutes. Perhaps they’d used that opportunity to exchange presents.

But Napoleon shakes his head. “I asked everyone not to give me any presents after Waverly gifted me condoms last year.”

“Wait, he really did that?” Gaby laughs incredulously. “Is  _ that _ why you decided to put his gift to use right at the party?”

Napoleon rolls his eyes. “Condoms aren’t the  _ worst _ of gifts. But it’s not like monogamy has ever been my strong suit. Honestly, I was a little shocked. He must have thought I’m either unable or unwilling to buy them myself.” He sips his drink and starts fiddling with the radio, trying to find a station that plays decent music.

“By the way, am I overthinking things, or does everyone treat me more and more awkwardly the more visibly pregnant I am?” Gaby asks. “Like I’m one of those fragile porcelain dolls who could break at any moment.”

“I don’t know about other people, but I’m not treating you any differently,” Napoleon replies.

Apparently, he’s found a station playing music he likes, as he steps back from the radio with a content expression on his face.

“Are you  _ kidding _ me? Of course, you’re treating me differently, too. You’re one of the worst offenders, in fact. For starters, you didn’t even dance with me at this year’s party.”

“But that’s different…” Napoleon trails off, clearly not telling her the whole truth. “And if you want me to make it up to you, we can dance now. We’ve got music and we’ve got each other, what more do we need?” He raises one questioning eyebrow and holds out his hand to her. “May I have the pleasure of this dance, Miss Teller?”

“Of course,” Gaby replies, gladly taking his hand and barely able to hide a triumphant smirk.

Their dancing is nowhere near as fast-paced or athletic as it had been at last year’s party, it’s slow, gentle, and  _ tame  _ compared to how she danced with Napoleon before. His hands never wander into risqué territory, not like last year… a part of it had been to rile Illya up, to show him what he was missing out on.

Now, they are more or less just swaying on the spot, since the living room is much too small to allow for proper dancing without bumping into pieces of furniture all the time.

Gaby thinks back to the party. Waverly had asked Napoleon for a private conversation. The expression on his face had probably looked like polite indifference to most people. Gaby, though, had known Waverly for longer than nearly anyone else at U.N.C.L.E. and so she’d seen his expression for what it really was - a mixture of chagrin and embarrassment.

And ever since he returned from this conversation with Waverly, Napoleon’s been acting differently, like there’s something he doesn’t want to tell her. He even opted for spending the evening with her in favor of staying at the party, chatting up any of the co-workers who’d been making moon eyes at him.

That means…

“Waverly’s sending you on a mission again, isn’t he?” Gaby asks while the radio plays a jaunty tune that doesn’t fit the mood. “When?”

Napoleon avoids her gaze, but his grip on her hand tightens for just a second. “Soon,” he says. “Just before New Year’s.”

“Is it going to be dangerous?” she asks, as though she doesn’t know the answer already.

Perhaps he’ll tell a lie, she thinks, perhaps he’ll indulge her and use that silver tongue of his to spin a pretty yarn to lull her into a false sense of security.

But he doesn’t.

“About as dangerous as all the other missions we’ve been sent on,” he replies.

A mission means there’s a very real chance you won’t be coming back. Until a few months ago, the three of them had willfully ignored the risk and lived life as though it would never end… as though they had all the time in the world.

Since then, Gaby has learned that life can be short, and that time is the most precious resource in the world.

“Promise me you’ll come back. You have to,” she says. “If you don’t, I’ll have to ask Waverly to be godfather.”

Napoleon chuckles. “You want me to be godfather? Really?” he asks. He’s trying to be playful, but he doesn’t succeed in hiding his nervousness.

“I think you’d do a good job,” Gaby says.

Napoleon doesn’t answer for a minute until Gaby wonders whether she’s offended him without realizing it.

“People would talk,” he finally says. “You know that.”

“I think people are already talking,” she replies drily. “It’s such a tragic story, right out of a movie, isn’t it? People love those.”

“I mean, people would talk if you asked  _ me _ to be godfather,” Napoleon corrects himself. “Are you sure it’d be appropriate?”

Gaby furrows her brow. “You’re the last person I ever suspected of worrying about propriety.”

“Well, I don’t have much of a good reputation I could lose, but—” He stops and closes his eyes for a second, as though he’s looking for the right words. He opens his eyes again, frowns and laughs it off, telling her to forget about it.

Gaby chooses to let it go, just one last time.

A new song comes on the radio, and she gives Napoleon a gentle nudge. “What do you say? One final dance and then we’ll call it a night?”

“Sure,” he agrees and if Gaby were to guess, she’d say his smile is made up of equal parts relief and gratefulness.

The distance between them had gotten narrower and narrower over the course of their dancing. She closes her eyes, content to lean against Napoleon.

She’s gotten so used to having him around…

The baby stirs.

Gaby’s eyes burn with unshed tears and she blinks them away before Napoleon can see them. In a week’s time, he’ll be sent on another mission, and who knows if she’ll ever see him again after that?

The last time she’d ever seen Illya, she’d carelessly said her goodbyes. If she’d known they were the last words Illya would ever hear from her, she would have chosen them more carefully. Instead, it was a quick kiss, a trivial joke, and Illya had left with too many things left unsaid.

Bitterness and regret threaten to take over and she quickly wrestles them into submission, regaining control of her emotions once again. If she could go back in time, do it all over again, she’d take Illya’s hands into hers and make him promise to return to her and the child she was carrying. Even as she thinks it, Gaby knows it would have been useless. As though knowledge of his imminent fatherhood could have somehow protected him from…

In a profession as dangerous as theirs, a promise to come back can never be more than wishful thinking.

She knows this, perhaps better than anyone, and yet she still tried to coax Napoleon into making such an empty promise just a few songs ago.

“And where are they going to send you on that mission?” she asks during the final chorus of the evening’s last dance. Her voice barely breaks, and she counts that as a win. “What will you have to do?”

“That’s classified information,” Napoleon replies. “I can’t tell you.”

“You’re not  _ supposed _ to tell me,” Gaby corrects him.

Napoleon chuckles weakly. “Exactly. And I’m sure you’re going to find out anyway, so… It’ll be Monaco. There’s been a number of shady financial transactions linked to an eccentric entrepreneur with a dubious past. We’re suspecting he might be financing terrorist groups to take out his competitors. The target has a penchant for gambling in the world’s most notorious casinos and I’m supposed to investigate him. It’s a routine mission, according to Waverly, but we both know that—”

“Illya also went on a routine mission,” Gaby finishes with a thick voice.

“Right,” Napoleon says. “But there’s absolutely no need to worry,” he adds quickly. “I’ll mostly be spending my evenings gambling away U.N.C.L.E.’s money. That’s not very dangerous, is it?”

“Perhaps,” Gaby mumbles, in lieu of pointing out how Napoleon had used the expression “mostly”. It didn’t matter if he spent 90% of his time in casinos, pretending to be just another cog in the jet-set machine when the remaining 10% of his time was spent tracking down and taking out a terrorist group.

Sometimes, all it takes is a single bullet.

Every mission could be the last.

In a week’s time, she’ll choose her words carefully when it comes to saying goodbye to the man dancing with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked the chapter! <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I'm back with another update for you! :) The previous chapter featured a lot of Gaby's POV, I think this chapter is a bit more balanced!

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1964**

There’s a framed photograph on Gaby’s nightstand. Illya and Gaby are hugging each other, their grins are frozen in time. The photograph was taken by Napoleon during their time in Istanbul.

It’s the first time he’s seen Peril laugh out loud… and sometimes, when Napoleon recalls that carefree smile, the unfairness of it all makes his heart hurt. Illya ought to have gotten the chance to see his child grow up.

“I need you to come back,” Gaby had said a few days ago.

Napoleon reluctantly opens the file he’s been given to study, but his mind keeps wandering back to Gaby, Peril, and their unborn child.

Peril had lost his father when he’d been taken to the Gulag – embezzling party funds had been the official reason to justify the sentence, but in truth, only Stalin himself had known why Nikolay Kuryakin had fallen from grace. From what little Illya has told Napoleon about his childhood, he’d never even gotten a chance to tell his father goodbye.

Gaby had effectively lost her father once he’d decided that living in a nice house in the American suburbs while designing weapons for his former enemy was more important than raising his daughter.

The pieces start falling into place, one by one…

Gaby had asked him to be godfather.

All things considered, Napoleon is far from being a shining example of propriety and respectability. The fact that Gaby trusts him to act as a father figure, makes him feel many things, but most of all he’s afraid he’ll let her down.

No.

He can do it, he tells himself.

And for that, first of all, he needs to come back from his missions.

He focuses on the file and makes sure to pay attention to even the smallest, most insignificant details.

* * *

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1965**

Her ob-gyn had instructed Gaby to count the kicks and jabs of her baby. As she mentions the number at one of her regular check-ups, her doctor raises an eyebrow.

“Seems like you’ve got a very active child,” she comments.

“No wonder, with a fighter like that for a father,” Gaby replies with a smile.

“Well, he’s certainly built like a fighter. Did he serve?” her doctor asks.

Gaby furrows her brows. “How would you know?”

She’s never discussed much of her painful personal history with her doctor, nor did she ever show her a photograph of Illya – her doctor doesn’t even know she’s a spy, she thinks Gaby’s working as a secretary.

“Isn’t it obvious? With a physique like that?”

“Are you talking about…?” Gaby begins but falls silent once she realizes the doctor’s mistake.

While her doctor has never met Illya, she has met Napoleon. Napoleon, who’s accompanied Gaby to check-ups before, Napoleon who’s held her hand when she felt uncertain and afraid, Napoleon who asked the doctor nearly as many questions as Gaby herself.

It’s a natural assumption.

Still…

“You’ve got it wrong,” she says numbly. “He’s just a friend, he’s not the father of my child.”

The follow-up question hangs in the air, unspoken and heavy, poisonous like a miasma. Where is the father, then?

What would she even say? The father of her child is most likely dead because she can’t think of any reason why he’d stay away for so long? And her friend might be dead, too, for all she knows, because she’s not allowed to communicate with him while he’s on a mission because that might blow his cover? That this is all too much for her because she’s already lost Illya but now she might lose Napoleon, too?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gaby says, trying to shut down the conversation. But if she can’t even find the right words to explain it to her doctor, how is she ever going to explain it to her child?

* * *

**Somewhere in Western Siberia, 1965**

Illya looks out of the grimy windows of the barrack into the Russian winter. The icy wind makes the snowflakes dance through the air, past the barracks and watchtowers, through the barbed wire into the world beyond the borders of the camp.

Into freedom.

Freedom…

Illya averts his eyes to resist its traitorous call.

Escaping with your life is close to impossible. The camp has already claimed one Kuryakin’s life. Why not another one?

By chance, Illya has discovered his father’s burial place.

Two days ago, one of his barrack mates had disappeared. It was a man in his early forties who went by the name of Yeliseyev. Illya and the other inmates had last seen him at dinner, two days ago.

Yeliseyev had had a glint in his eyes that promised trouble or madness, possibly both. He’d been talking nonsense for a few weeks now – he’d been lucky, the guards had left him alone until now.

For a while, Illya had even been tempted to interpret their inaction as leniency, but Yeliseyev’s disappearance the day before yesterday had brought them all back to the harsh reality of prison life. 

This morning, the guards dragged Yeliseyev’s lifeless body through the snow, so all the inmates could take a good hard look at it during morning assembly in the bitter cold. “Shot during attempted escape”, the guards said.

Illya saw enough of Yeliseyev’s body to tell that the gunman must have stood in front of Yeliseyev, not behind him, and the two bullet holes could only have been produced after at least a few hours of physical torture. He didn’t say anything, of course – to do so would be akin to suicide – but he quietly filed that observation away in his ever more troubled mind.

Later that day, Illya was one of the prisoners tasked with burying Yeliseyev. Trying to dig a hole when the ground is frozen solid is close to impossible and they slaved away for what felt like an eternity, cursing and snarling. At one point, Illya’s spade struck something that wasn’t earth, wasn’t stone, and wasn’t wood… it was a human skull.

Upon his confusion, one of the other prisoners shrugged it off. “They’ve been burying the dead here since the camp was first opened,” he said. “If we’re digging up bones, that means the hole is deep enough.”

As they lowered Yelisevey’s body into the ground, Illya realized his father’s bones must be buried somewhere on the patch of land where he was standing.

* * *

Excerpt from a letter written by Nikolay Kuryakin to his wife and son, 1941:

_I don’t want you to worry about me. It’s not so bad here. Accommodation and rations are perfectly satisfactory. Every day, I go to the forest to cut down trees with the other inmates – it’s a just punishment for my crimes. In the evening, we are allowed to attend political seminars, so we may learn to better ourselves in due time and not make the same mistake twice. I will be fine. Please, do not worry. I am counting the days until I’ll be able to return to you and hug and kiss you both. This separation won’t last forever, I know it._

His father’s letters – as irregularly as they had arrived – had been a great source of comfort until a letter had been delivered in 1946, informing Illya and his mother that Nikolay Kuryakin had died of a ruptured appendix.

Illya had stared at the letter with disbelief – his father had had his appendix removed in 1938, there was no way—

Only then had Illya realized his father’s letters had always been littered with lies in a desperate attempt to spare his family the knowledge of the suffering he was going through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 If you liked the chapter, a comment and/or kudos would make my day! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and commented on the last chapter! <3 This chapter is a little more experimental than the others before it - let me know what you think, please!

**Somewhere in Western Siberia, 1965**

Part of the military oath of the USSR, sworn by Illya Kuryakin when he joined the Special Forces: 

I swear in good faith to study military affairs, to cherish military and national property in every way and, to the last breath, to be devoted to my People, my Soviet Motherland, and the Soviet Government. 

* * *

Excerpt from a letter written by Illya Kuryakin addressed to Gabriella Teller, never sent, later destroyed by the camp authorities without the prisoner’s knowledge: 

_They tell me it’s ten years of hard labor for treason._

_I did the math. Ten years, that’s 3652 days. The two extra days are because of the leap years. [1] So far, I have spent 171 days at the camp. That means I’ve got 3481 days left._

_Little chop-shop girl, I think I’m going to disappoint you. I don’t know if I can make it through the remaining days..._

_At first, I thought I could flee… but I’m afraid I’m not strong enough for that. There’s the cold, there’s the hunger, there’s the all-encompassing exhaustion and more often than not, when I’m thinking of escape  , I’m actually thinking of  death ._

_Whatever happens, I need you to know that I haven’t forgotten you._

_I’ll never forget you._

_I promise._

_I think that was a lie._

_I can’t find the right words to describe it, but the camp dulls  everything. It gets harder and harder to concentrate on the simplest things. It gets harder and harder to  remember . Sometimes, I try to recall the sound of your voice or the smell of your favorite perfume and I… I can’t remember it anymore, no matter how much I rack that poor, useless brain of mine, I can’t remember._

_I can’t even remember the last thing I said to you._

_Some days, I think it was “I love you.”_

_But maybe it wasn’t “I love you”, maybe it was “I’ll be back before you know it.”_

_I just don’t remember anymore, and it makes me half-mad that I can’t recall, that I’ll never know for sure. I want  to believe that I left you with the truth, and not with the lie._

_But sometimes it gets so hard to…_

_Why aren’t you writing back?_

_Have you ever gotten any of my previous letters?_

_I love you._

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

_Gaby, please, write back._

* * *

Part of the military oath of the USSR, sworn by Illya Kuryakin when he joined the Special Forces: 

I swear to defend (my Homeland) courageously, skillfully, with dignity and honor, not sparing my blood and life itself to achieve a complete victory over enemies.

* * *

Nobody ever told him which law he’d supposedly broken. There’d never been a trial. But who needs a trial, when the verdict is a foregone conclusion?

Ten years of hard labor.

Even though Illya had tried so hard to clear his family’s name and had done everything to regain the privileges he remembered from childhood. He’d said all the right things in all sorts of interviews. Like an automaton he’d denounced his father, calling him a counter-revolutionary, a saboteur, a traitor to his country – all while his fingers twitched, all while Nikolay Kuryakin’s watch encircled Illya’s wrist.

He’d been naïve enough to believe that unwavering loyalty and blind obedience would be rewarded.

Laughable, in hindsight.

In the end, all his hard work had only bought him borrowed time.

Being stationed in East Germany, so close to the wall, so close to the _West_ , hadn’t it been a testament to how much the KGB leadership trusted him?

So, what had changed their minds? Or had Illya simply been too gullible – why hadn’t he learned his lesson when he witnessed his father’s downfall? How could that not have been enough to realize that the system chewed you up only to spit you out later?

And now he’s following in his father’s footsteps, a well-trodden path to perdition, in a world shaped by watchtowers and barbed wire, where life is measured in cut-down trees and half-rotten meals.

Whenever Illya catches a rare glimpse of his reflection, he barely recognizes himself. His cheeks are hollow, his smile has morphed into a mean, crooked thing, and lines are prematurely starting to dig their way into his face, turning him into an older, harsher, more cynical version of himself.

If half a year at the camp is enough to warp him like this, what will the rest of his ten-year sentence do to him? Illya hesitates to imagine it, for fear of losing the tattered remains of his sanity.

And he still doesn’t know what sort of crime he has supposedly committed. If he knew, perhaps the punishment would be easier to endure? Just as love tastes sweeter if it is unconditional, punishment bites harder if it is unwarranted.

* * *

Part of the military oath of the USSR, sworn by Illya Kuryakin when he joined the Special Forces: 

If I violate my solemn oath, then let me suffer the harsh punishment of Soviet law, the general hatred, and contempt of the workers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] A reference to the ending of Solzhenitsyn’s “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”.
> 
> I got the military oath from [this site](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8F%D0%B3%D0%B0%20) and translated the text using Google translate.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I've got another chapter for you! :) Sorry for taking longer to update than usual, I had to work through some writer's block last week!

**Monaco, 1965**

Napoleon is having a quiet moment.

The mission has gone well. He’s accomplished what he’s been told to do, in a little over three weeks. Tomorrow, he’ll board a flight which will take him back to the other side of the pond, where he’ll report to Waverly.

Afterward, he’ll start preparing for the next mission.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Since he’s successfully completed the mission, Napoleon decided that a little celebration was in order. So, he’s done the usual: Gone out, had a drink, struck up a conversation or two… and now, the excitement is gone, and goodbye is imminent.

He’s nursing a drink; glass in one hand, he lets his other hand roam free and draw senseless shapes on his lover’s skin. Tomorrow, he’ll be back home, and with an eagerness that half-frightens and half-excites him, he finds himself looking forward to seeing Gaby again.

He hasn’t been able to contact her during the mission for fear of blowing his cover and he’s burning with the need for answers to his numerous questions. How is she? Is the baby alright? Does she need—

“Liar,” his lover chuckles.

“What?” Napoleon asks. “Why?” (The accusation isn’t exactly unfounded, Napoleon has told a great number of lies that night, including, but not limited to his name, his profession, and his reason for coming to Monaco, as well as his opinion on Chardonnay and his taste in movies.)

“You said you were _single_ ,” she says with a crooked grin. “But clearly, you’re not.”

Napoleon shakes his head. “I _am_ single,” he replies with a laugh, holding up his left hand, as though the absence of a ring is proof enough. “See? No ring, no relationship, no—”

“ _Please_.” She rolls her gray eyes and stretches her body, much like a cat waking up after a nap. “Lie all you want, but there’s someone you’d rather be with and you miss them.”

“Really? How can you tell?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” She deftly plucks the glass out of his hand and takes a sip. Licking her lips, she continues, “If you’re with someone who says they’re happily married… well, they usually don’t seem to miss their spouse much, do they? With you, it’s the exact opposite. You say there’s no one, but you just had a look on your face that tells me you’re lying. There’s definitely someone… so who are they?”

Napoleon frowns. What sort of look…? Peril’s face flashes before his eyes, just after they’d eliminated Alexander Vinciguerra. Gaby and Illya had been clustered together, while Napoleon sat by himself. Tentatively, he patted his pocket, searching for Peril’s watch. It was still intact, not beaten and bruised like the three of them. He started reaching for the watch, intent on returning the family heirloom to Peril.

Looking at the pair, however, something made him stop short. The look on Peril’s face… Napoleon didn’t know whether Gaby noticed that Illya was looking at her like she’d hung the moon. Napoleon hesitated. That look on Peril’s face, it made him feel things for which he wasn’t prepared.

Gaby wants him to be _godfather_.

It’s right to support Gaby and to be her friend, isn’t it? And yet, Napoleon still feels as though he’s crossing a line, overstepping a boundary they’ve never even established, just to selfishly swoop up something that should rightfully belong to Illya.

...but in the past, Napoleon earned his livelihood by stealing and old habits die hard.

* * *

**Somewhere in Western Siberia, 1965**

Mail for the prisoners arrives irregularly, but as long as there’s someone who writes to you, the letters arrive _eventually_. During the time Illya’s spent at the camp so far, all his barrack mates have received multiple letters from their loved ones, while Illya has received nothing. No letter, no postcard, not even a few hastily scribbled lines, even though he’s written letters to Gaby, to Waverly, hell, he even wrote to Solo.

None of them have replied, not even Gaby.

The other inmates look forward to mail day, but Illya has learned to resent it. Has everyone forgotten about him, did they just replace him, hire another agent and pretend Illya never existed in the first place? If not, why don’t they at least write back? At this point, Illya will gladly give up everything he has left for an “I am sorry to hear of your prison sentence” from Waverly, a “Hang in there, Peril” from Solo and an “I love you” from Gaby. Then again, it’s not much of a sacrifice if you give up hunger and hopelessness, pain, and exhaustion, is it? Perhaps that’s why he’s still waiting in vain.

…or there’s no one left who could write to him.

Perhaps the Soviet state hadn’t only turned on Illya for his involvement with U.N.C.L.E. but turned on the whole organization itself.

His heartbeat quickens at the thought, his mind rapidly overflowing with all sorts of nightmarish scenarios, displaying an inventiveness Illya wouldn’t have expected of his dull, half-crazed-with-hunger imagination.

Illya spends twenty minutes in a fear-induced daze. He only snaps out of it after one of the supervisors snaps that Illya ought to pick up the pace if he wants to have a chance of meeting his output target that day.

With an extraordinary effort, Illya manages to reign his thoughts back in and guide them back towards rationality (or what passes for rationality, in an environment as perverted as this one).

U.N.C.L.E. isn’t unprepared. Illya has spent a substantial amount of time comparing notes with Gaby, Solo, and Waverly. Everyone contributed their particular expertise, intending to make U.N.C.L.E. as resilient to attacks as humanly possible. That’s probably what he enjoyed most about working for U.N.C.L.E. – thinking about ways to take the best parts of each system to create a new and improved version of a secret service. In addition to that, Gaby and Solo are probably still working together and Illya had seen first-hand what a formidable team they made when they’d escaped from East Berlin. Illya would have never dared to say it out loud, but the more time they spent together, the less aggravating the American became. However, from time to time he still managed to inspire quite some confusion in him, as though Solo was a riddle Illya could never hope to solve.

Illya startles at the thought. His first instinct is to push it away, to banish it back to where it came from, to the darkest, most remote corners of his mind. But what difference does it make? There is no beauty to be found anywhere at the camp. So what if Illya doesn’t only think about how much he misses Gaby? So what if he finally admits to himself he’s also been missing Solo?

And when night falls and the prisoners start their monotonous mumbling of the names of their far-away loved ones, Illya allows himself some foolish fantasies about the shape of Solo’s lips and what it might have felt like if—

A new name joins the babel of voices, awkwardly and reluctantly at first, since Illya’s mouth is no longer accustomed to forming the sounds.

Into the freezing Siberian night air, he whispers: “Napoleon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was less experimental than the previous one, I guess - let me know what you think! <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back with another chapter for you! :) This one's a bit on the shorter side, I think, but let me know what you think! <3

**Somewhere in The United States of America, 1965**

It’s a dreary Sunday afternoon when Gaby finally gathers up all her courage and takes a look at the box in the living room. It’s been sitting there undisturbed, filled to the brim with documents, photographs, and memorabilia her father left behind. She received the box after the last investigations into her father’s abduction and demise had been finalized. A perfectly civil man, wearing a brown suit and a forgettable face showed up on her doorstep two weeks ago, delivering the box. Gaby’s practiced eye almost immediately clocked him as CIA.

He’d given her a bland smile and asked for her signature before he deposited the box in her living room.

It’s been gathering dust ever since.

When Gaby – heart-pounding, sweat-clammy palms - opens the box, she realizes it’s an exercise in reconstructing the past not only for the sake of her child but for her own sake, too. After all, she doesn’t remember her mother and barely has any memories of her father. The man she’d briefly met during captivity had been a stranger; a father in name only. Nothing more.

What had she said to Illya when he’d awkwardly tried to offer his condolences after Udo Teller’s death?

“I lost him a long time ago.”

She takes a deep breath. The first thing she finds is a medal and an accompanying certificate, awarded to Dr. Teller for his extraordinary contributions to the field of physics.

Gaby’s mouth twitches into a cruel smile.

Her father’s ‘contributions’ are weapons of mass destruction, but apparently, she lives in a world that deems that worthy of an award.

She puts the certificate and the medal aside and looks for the next item. It’s a photo album and as she slowly turns the pages, her heartbeat quickens. The photographs are  _ old _ ; the captions are written in her father’s meticulous, antiquated handwriting, and as Gaby slowly makes her way through the album, she discovers the past of a man she’s hardly ever gotten to know.

There’s a family photograph, her paternal grandparents surrounded by their three sons. None of the people on the photograph are smiling, except for the youngest boy. Udo. Her father. His grin is mischievous and makes Gaby think of a little troublemaker, keeping his parents on their toes at all times.

The next double page is dedicated to her parents’ wedding in 1934. Her father’s handwriting informs her that the wedding had taken place at her mother’s family’s estate in East Prussia. A disturbingly high number of wedding guests wears a signature black uniform with lightning-shaped insignia, including the best man, who Gaby recognizes as her uncle Rudy.

At least she has photographs now, she tells herself. But does she really want to pass on such a legacy to her child, when everything inside her screams to deny and decline the connections she has to those people? She remembers her uncle’s reaction to Illya all too well, the way he’d spouted off insults. If he were still alive and could see her now… she can imagine his sneer and snide remarks:  _ Wirklich, Gaby? Ein Russenkind? Sag mal, schämst du dich denn gar nicht? _

With trembling hands, she turns the pages, only to find a few more family photographs, including one of herself as a toddler. She stares at the pages, searching for connection or recognition and feeling ever more distraught when she can’t manage to find anything. It’s a past she can’t remember, relics from a world which crumbled and burned around her as Gaby learned to walk and talk.

There’s a photograph of her mother with a two-year-old Gaby sitting on her lap. Luise Teller’s forlorn expression looks terribly familiar. Gaby has seen it often enough these past few weeks – every time she happens to look in a mirror. Is that what her future is going to look like and is that all she can pass on to her child? Yellowed black-and-white photographs of a young woman with large, sad eyes for a grandmother and a half-rehabilitated war criminal for a grandfather? And a father, who’d died before he’d ever even heard of the existence of his child?

Just as she’s about to close the photo album, a loose piece of paper falls out. She picks it up – it’s a note to her father, informing him that the note’s author had pulled a few strings and located the photographs Dr. Teller had requested. Apparently, the Soviets had first seized them when they’d captured Berlin.

Gaby stares at the note in disbelief, slowly realizing that her father had asked the Americans to retrieve a bunch of photographs from Berlin, but it hadn’t occurred to him to ask them to retrieve  _ her _ . The photographs had been more important than his daughter – but that had always been the case, hadn’t it? After all, when an aerial attack had cost his wife’s life, Udo Teller’s reaction hadn’t been to spend more time with his daughter, to become a better parent… no, instead, he’d found a foster family for her, so he could focus on the things that  _ really _ mattered to him: his research.

Furiously wiping at her eyes, Gaby carefully extracts just a single photograph – the one depicting her with her mother – from the photo album, preparing to store the rest of her father’s belongings in the attic.

But the box is too heavy, her belly’s too big, and before she knows it, Gaby finds herself sobbing in her living room, the box sitting there like a silent accusation.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to update! The delay was due to a combination of writer's block and on-going health issues :/
> 
> Good news, though: I've got most of the next chapter pre-written, so hopefully the next update won't take so long! <333

**Chapter 9**

**Somewhere in The United States of America, 1965**

The first thing Gaby does when Napoleon gets back from Monaco – healthy, whole, and most importantly  _ alive _ ? She asks him to carry the box to the attic.

Well, no. It’s not quite the first thing she does.

The  _ very  _ first thing she does is do a double-take to make sure he’s really standing in front of her and that he’s not a figment of her imagination. Or worse: a ghost. A double-take and she wonders why her heartbeat is speeding up until the rush of blood in her ears nearly drowns out his “It’s so good to see you again.”

* * *

“You know, Alexander dropped by earlier today,” Gaby says to Napoleon a few weeks later.

“Oh?” Napoleon asks, raising an eyebrow. “Do I have to surrender my impending godfatherhood to him after all?”

“No,” Gaby replies, trying to think of a way to approach the topic. Alexander – and he’s Alexander now, she doesn’t quite know when that had happened, when he’d gone from being only her employer to being her friend – had stopped by to talk to her about recent developments regarding the investigation into Illya’s disappearance. Apparently, the Soviets were unusually non-forthcoming with information regarding the exact circumstances of Illya’s death. Gaby was starting to grow tired of it all. “I just want clarity!” she complained to Alexander. “Or will I have to say ‘classified information’ one day, when my child wants to know why they don’t have a father?”

“I’ve tried just about every approach I could think of,” Alexander admitted. “But it’s like talking to a brick wall, unfortunately. To be honest, that’s strange. They’re not usually this uncooperative, but that’s not much of a comfort, is it?”

“No,” Gaby said, bitterness slipping into her voice. “It’s not.”

Before he could think of anything to say in reply to that, Alexander spotted a men’s jacket casually hanging over the back of a chair. He gestured to it with a questioning expression.

„Oh, it’s Napoleon’s,” Gaby said. “He must have forgotten it when he went home last night.” In fact, Gaby had offered him the guest room, but he’d declined, saying something about privacy and propriety which didn’t sound like him at all. She’d asked him if he was sure he hadn’t been brainwashed in Monaco, but he’d laughed it off.

(After he’d left, Gaby lay awake wondering if she could have gotten him to stay by confessing that she feels safer and more comfortable when he’s in the house.)

Alexander gave the jacket a peculiar look. “Well, when he comes to pick it up, could you remind Agent Solo that he should be finishing his report about the Monaco mission. I have the impression  _ my  _ reminders aren’t getting through to him.”

Gaby rolled her eyes. “But you know him, his reports have always been late.”

“Not  _ that _ late,” he countered. “You know, I’ve begun wondering if there’s something – or someone – keeping him from focusing on his job. I’m not about to start spying on my employees, but I was just asking myself if you’d… perhaps…?”

“Oh, so  _ you’re _ not going to spy on your employees?” Gaby asked with an amused undertone. “But you have no qualms about asking me to spy on another spy while I’m on maternity leave?”

Alexander sighed. “You know what I mean. If there’s a potential partner in the picture, we’ll have to perform background checks to make sure they’re trustworthy et cetera.”

Gaby nodded. „I mean, there’s no harm in asking,” she assented. “But I want to stress that I’m not doing this to spy on my friend but just out of natural curiosity, okay?”

“Of course not,” Alexander said with a faint smile.

* * *

„What, the boss complained that my report is late?” Napoleon asks. „I’ve always hated writing reports. He ought to know that by now. And maybe I just don’t want to be sent on another mission right away. I didn’t choose to become a spy, you know, it was sort of forced upon me. Can you really blame me if my morale is low sometimes?”

„He thinks there might be… a different reason why your report is late. Are you by any chance unusually distracted?“

„’Unusually distracted’?“ he repeats. „That’s supposed to be a synonym for what exactly?”

“He thinks you’re infatuated with someone and neglect your work because of that,” Gaby says. She keeps her tone of voice light-hearted and slightly teasing, but actually… when she thinks of Napoleon possibly starting a relationship with someone, it makes her feel uneasy in a way she can’t quite describe. Perhaps it’s because she’s come to depend on him so much in the past few months, that the thought of Napoleon spending a lot of time with someone else, someone he’s  _ romantically _ involved with doesn’t sit well with her.

“In that case, you can calm him down, there’s no one,” Napoleon quickly replies. Taken just as a statement, his reply should have dispelled her doubts, but in fact, it does nothing of the sort. Gaby has worked with Napoleon for too long and knows his tells too well – the moment he opened his mouth, she knew he was lying.

Now, this… if the thought of Napoleon being romantically involved with someone already bothers her, having him lie to her about it actually  _ hurts _ . Why won’t he admit to it? She recalls Waverly mentioning background checks – perhaps he’s afraid U.N.C.L.E. would put an end to a budding relationship, so he wants to enjoy it while it lasts? Gaby can easily understand that Illya and she had lived and loved voraciously from one mission to the next, trying to coordinate their downtime as best as they could. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d known that their profession was dangerous, but she still hadn’t thought their luck would run out quite so quickly. Intentionally procrastinating makes a lot of sense if you’re trying to carve out a bit more time to spend with your partner before you have to say goodbye again, perhaps forever.

But if there is someone in Napoleon’s life, why wouldn’t he have introduced them to Gaby or at least admitted he was seeing someone? She used to think they were part of a team and, in her opinion, being part of a team entails—

Or maybe Napoleon hadn’t introduced her to the person he was seeing because it had something to do with the weird ideas about propriety and “people would talk” he’d been voicing these past few months.

A thought makes his way into her mind, rapidly taking root. She’d speculated about it with Illya sometimes, but they’d never actually asked Napoleon whether… but it would make sense, wouldn’t it? She supposes it’s a natural reaction to try to hide it from U.N.C.L.E., but the fact that he feels the need to be secretive with her, too? Gaby thought they were  _ friends _ – did she ever make Napoleon feel as though he couldn’t be open with her?

“Are you sure you’re not dating anyone?” she asks.

He rolls his eyes. “Very sure, yes. I thought I just said so?”

“Then why is your report so late?”

“It’s… it’s complicated and I’m not even sure if I want to talk about it at length, but let’s just say… I’m not like you or Peril. I didn’t choose to become a spy and for me, it was never something I could be proud of. It was either working for the CIA or serving a prison sentence. I just chose the lesser of two evils. Working for U.N.C.L.E. is better than working for the CIA, don’t get me wrong, but if I could, I’d quit. Especially now that I’m asking myself if this is really what I… if I could be happy like this in the long-term. Always preparing for another mission, living with perpetual fear and uncertainty… can you blame me?”

Gaby bites her lip. “No, I don’t suppose I can,” she says quietly and decides to have another talk with Alexander. Not about Napoleon’s late report, but rather about how she’s supposed to combine a job in which every assignment could cost her life with being a single mother.


	10. Chapter 10

** Somewhere in the United States of America, 1965 **

Gaby and Napoleon are watching a movie and for a while, Gaby even tries to focus on the plot. It’s an old crime flick - judging by the fashion and the cars, it had been filmed in the 1940s and with a low budget, at that. If they’d made a movie in her home country in the 1940s, it would have been nothing but ruins and carnage. The thought makes her shiver.

“Are you cold?” Napoleon asks, giving her a preoccupied look. He seems to have completely forgotten about the movie playing in the background.

She looks into his bright blue eyes. There’s something so earnest about his worries…

Gaby shivers again, but this time, it has nothing to do with memories of home.

“Are you cold?” he repeats.

“A bit,” she lies, tearing her eyes from Napoleon’s face. She forces herself to concentrate on the movie once more.

“I’ll get you a blanket, alright?”, he offers, standing up and blocking her view of the TV screen. “Which one do you want?”

“The red one,” she says, licking her lips. Standing in front of her like that, she has to crane her neck to look up into Napoleon’s face. How come she’s never noticed how tall and broad he is?

“And where do I find the red one?” he asks with a flirtatious smirk that flatters his features so much, Gaby suspects he must have practiced it in front of a mirror. Knowing Napoleon, there is a high chance that’s exactly what he’s done. Why does he choose to use it on her, though? At this point, she thinks, he might just do it subconsciously.

“It’s in my bedroom,” Gaby says. “The red blanket, I mean.”

“I figured,” he replies with a wink. “Alright, the red blanket from your bedroom, coming right up.”

“Thanks,” she rasps, wondering when her mouth has become so dry.

Another shiver runs down her spine.

She lets her gaze follow Napoleon’s form up the stairs until he disappears from view.

He’s attractive, Gaby can no longer deny that. Blood rushes into her cheeks at the thought.

Napoleon returns with the blanket and kneels in front of the sofa to drape it around Gaby’s shoulders.

“Better now?”

She nods, pulling the blanket tighter around herself to keep Napoleon from seeing the gooseflesh covering her arms which has nothing to do with the room temperature.

“You didn’t catch a cold, did you? Or the flu? I mean, it could be bad for the baby and we—”

“Don’t worry, I’m perfectly healthy,” she interrupts him. I’m just scared, she doesn’t say. Scared of the things you’re making me feel. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, taking hold of her hands.

“Yes,” she says. “The baby is going to be just fine.” She stresses her last point by squeezing Napoleon’s hands. “Really, don’t worry.”

“Okay,” he says, smiling at her, even though it ends up looking a little desperate. “I’m sorry. If I’m overbearing and annoying, just tell me. It’s because… Gaby, you must know that I feel responsible for your well-being. I feel responsible for  _ both  _ of you.”

She swallows around the lump in her throat. “You’re doing a great job,” she whispers. “Really,” she adds. “The baby is going to be fine. Here.” She pulls one of Napoleon’s hands towards her and under her shirt until his palm is resting on her belly. “The baby’s kicking. Can you feel it?”

“Yes,” he mumbles and starts smiling, almost against his will.

His palm feels warm on her belly and he’s caressing her skin ever so slightly with the pad of his thumb.

She locks eyes with him.

Napoleon looks like a schoolboy who’s been caught breaking the rules. “I’m sorry,” he says, averts his eyes and starts to pull his hand back.

Gaby can’t tell what sort of madness prompts her to reach for his hand and put it back on her belly, she only knows she doesn’t want the skin-to-skin contact to end. She doesn’t want Napoleon to stop touching her.

“Gaby?” he asks.

Her pulse speeds up until it feels as though her heart is trying to escape out of her ribcage.

She wants Napoleon to keep on touching her.

The blood is rushing in her ears, as she reaches out with trembling hands and lets the tips of her fingers brush against Napoleon’s cheek.

His five o’clock shadow feels scratchy.

She licks her lips and draws a heavy breath.

“Gaby?” Napoleon repeats hoarsely.

She’s sure the desperation and pain in his expression are mirrored on her own face.

How could she have been so blind?

Napoleon’s hand wanders from her belly to her hip.

How long has she been ignoring this?

“Do you want this, too?” he asks.

“Very much,” she whispers, tracing Napoleon’s jawline with her thumb. She leans in, greedily inhaling the scent of his aftershave and observing how he licks his lips in anticipation.

The TV is still on in the background, but neither of them is paying any attention to it, neither to the flickering screen nor to the bits and pieces of dialogue.

She’s breathing heavily, running one of her fingers over Napoleon’s bottom lip before finally leaning in further, closing the gap between them.

Their lips touch and she closes her eyes, savoring the moment. Hot and cold shivers run down her spine; she doesn’t know whether she wants to laugh or cry. She settles for laughing.

Feeling her smile against his skin, Napoleon lets out a small, strangled noise and pulls her closer, burying one of his hands in her hair, messing up the practical updo she’s worn it in the whole day.

What is happening, a small part of her wants to ask, but it’s soon overwhelmed by a heady mixture of desire and curiosity. She wants to see him, feel him,  _ taste _ him—

She leans in further, closer to him, deepening the kiss. At the same time, she runs her hands over his back, over his chest, feeling the solid muscle hidden underneath the fabric of his expensive dress shirt. He always dresses so conservatively, at least when other people are around to see him. 

Now, she wants to see him a little messed up, a little out of control, she wants him to… Before she can finish the thought, Napoleon pulls back, staring at her with wide eyes. “What are we  _ doing _ ?” he whispers into the space between them, so close his warm breath tickles her skin.

“I don’t know,” she lies, not pausing long enough to let herself feel shame or embarrassment and quickly following it up with another lie: “We should... we should probably forget about it.”

If Napoleon looks dejected at her words, he quickly schools his features into something more practical and acceptable. He nods a practical, acceptable nod. “We should,” he agrees quietly and doesn’t mean a word of what he’s saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably one of my favorite chapters to write - let me know what you think! <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos on the previous chapter, guys! <3 We're catching up with Illya in this one, so it'll be slightly darker than the last few chapters!

**Somewhere in Western Siberia, 1965**

There used to be a photograph, tucked away in a photo album at the Kuryakin’s flat – it had been taken during a sunny summer afternoon in the 1930s. Illya’s father had been invited to spend time at his friend’s dacha and he’d brought his family along. Illya – three years old, wide-eyed and chubby-cheeked – had been photographed as he sat on dacha’s owner’s lap, who was a mustachioed man with a pock-marked face.

A few years later, NKVD agents made havoc of the flat in search of the photograph. The mustachioed man with the pock-marked face had ordered them to find and destroy it. There must not be any evidence linking him to people he’d labeled traitors. The agents had been ordered to destroy everything that connected Nikolay Kuryakin to the red czar residing in the Kremlin.

At first, Illya and his mother had tried to save some family heirlooms and trinkets from destruction in acts of stupid, reckless bravery, but the agents quickly taught them that resistance was futile.

When they laid waste to the apartment, Illya had tried to stand up to the agents.

Later on, bloodied up and concussed, Illya was unable to stop them as the men started tearing his mother’s dress to shreds.

Illya had gotten his first acrid taste of adulthood when he’d tried to comfort his crying mother after the agents had left. With each tear he dried, he started resenting his father a little bit more, believing the claim that he’d embezzled party funds. Because life had been easy, hadn’t it? Everyone in their family had always gotten everything they wanted, the Kuryakins had never wanted for anything. Had his father been stealing the party’s money to afford a life of luxury for his family, and now he was paying the price by being sent to the Gulag? Had his mother known about it? Was this their punishment?

In time, Illya learned what it meant to live without privileges, to survive on meager rations in cramped apartments. To hear insults aimed at him and his family. More than once he returned home with a bloody nose and split knuckles after a taunt escalated into a schoolyard fistfight. As the years passed, Illya grew stronger and started winning those fights more often, until everyone at school and in the neighborhood knew that it was better to hold their tongue than to risk provoking Illya Kuryakin’s ire.

The army provided him with an outlet for his pent-up aggression and he quickly rose through the ranks. First, he joined the special forces, later on, he was approached by KGB recruiters. “A man with your talents should use them to defend the motherland,” they said.

Illya had been elated – this was his chance at rehabilitating his family after his father’s incarceration.

(And flashing a KGB badge could open doors, procure luxury articles and entice people to cooperate like little else. It was almost like his childhood, when his father would just mention his name and show his party card to get people to start fawning.) 

After his first day at the KGB, he’d gone to visit his mother. Chest swollen with pride, he wore his uniform like a badge of honor. He’d meant to surprise her, but the sight of a man in uniform at her door had given his mother a panic attack. For a moment she’d thought those men were back, the ones who took the photograph… among other things.

Until the day she died, Illya had never again worn his uniform when interacting with his mother.

* * *

Mail day comes and for the first time since his arrival at the camp, Illya doesn’t hand in a letter to the guards. He started writing to Gaby, but couldn’t manage to finish the letter without slipping either into hurtful profanities or outright begging for a reply – any reply at all. When it’s time to hand the letters to the guards, Illya looks at his angry, spiteful sentences interspersed with desperate pleas and doesn’t recognize himself anymore. Biting the inside of his hollowed cheek hard enough to draw blood, he surreptitiously rips the letter to shreds and hides the pieces of paper in his sleeve, before the guards can get their hands on them.

“No letter today, Kuryakin?” the guard asks with a raised eyebrow and a glint in his eyes.

Illya just mutely shakes his head.

“Pity. They were always so entertaining,” the guard says before raising his voice to quote one of Illya’s previous letters. “ _ ’Why aren’t you writing back? Gaby, please write back!’  _ Gaby – that’s your girl, isn’t she? If she can’t even bring herself to sit down and write you a letter… makes you wonder how much she loved you in the first place, doesn’t it?”

Illya forces himself to take deep breaths, trying and failing to conceal his whole body shaking with anger. Attacking a guard would be a stupid idea, he’s carrying a gun and he’s got back-up. It would be suicide; all he’d get for his troubles would be a bullet through his brain. A few of his fellow inmates would be ordered to dig a shallow grave in the frozen ground, so Illya could join all the other prisoners whose lives the camp had claimed, his father among them.

It would be a pitiful death, but at least it’d be quick and it’s only the surprising strength with which he finds himself yearning for such a death that jolts Illya and keeps him from doing something irrational.

Even his father held out for years, Illya tells himself. He can do the same. The camp won’t break him so easily, so swiftly. He won’t let it.

Gathering all his willpower, he doesn’t respond to the guard, only gives him a non-committal shrug. The guard snorts derisively, but moves on to the next prisoners, collecting their letters and taunting them, after Illya proved to be a boring target.

During his shift in the forest, Illya imagines each blow of his ax connecting with the guard’s face. It’s noticeably easier to meet his daily output target this way, fueled by murderous rage as he is. And rage is the better alternative because if he let himself think about the guard’s words for more than a few seconds, Illya would find himself agreeing with him. Because it  _ does _ make him wonder how much he meant to Gaby as a partner, to Napoleon as a friend and to U.N.C.L.E. as an asset if they can’t even sit down to write a letter.

He doesn’t know that in this exact moment, Napoleon witnesses the moment in which Illya becomes a father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attention: Time skip! :)

**Somewhere in Western Siberia, 1968**

Roll call works much the same each day. The guard in charge reads out a prisoner’s number – in Illya’s case it’s #526813 – and the corresponding prisoner signals their presence with a loud “Yes!” or “Here!”. If everything goes well, the guards don’t take any interest in you for the rest of the day and once the last prisoner is accounted for, the scramble for the best places in the breakfast queue begins. Sometimes, however, if the guards are in a particularly bad mood, they’ll single out a prisoner or two during roll call and let them perform senseless, tiring, or even humiliating tasks in front of the others. Every prisoner does their best to prevent drawing the guards’ attention to themselves. 

“526813!”

“Here!” Illya responds as he’s done countless days before. Keeping track of the days of his imprisonment had quickly become frustrating since the number of days just didn’t seem to be going down. After a while, Illya started counting down the weeks rather than the days, afterward the months, and eventually the years. Four years down, six to go, in a cruel monotonous trot.

“Step forward, 526813!” the guard commands.

Illya does as he’s told, even though it makes his skin crawl, being singled out like this. What is it going to be this time? Push-ups until he passes out, like last time? Or have they cooked up something else?

To Illya’s immense surprise, the guard only asks him an innocuous question.

“You’re assigned to the wood cutting brigade, aren’t you?”

“Correct,” Illya answers, confused. What are they getting at? Are they trying to double his output target and make an example of him in front of the other inmates, warning them that a similar punishment is awaiting them if they misbehave?

“Orders from above,” the guard says. “You’re being reassigned to wood processing. Understood?”

“I… uh… understood!” Illya manages. Why the sudden reassignment? Misbehavior or complete obedience, it hadn’t mattered these past four years. He’s been stuck cutting wood in the forest. And suddenly they decide to reassign him to wood processing, which means a comparatively easier workload, longer breaks, and better chances of actually getting more than leftovers at dinner? It doesn’t make any sense.

Illya waits for the catch with bated breath, but it doesn’t come. It seems he’s really just being reassigned. He decides to count his blessings and accepts the reassignment without protest.

However, doubts start resurfacing when the guards take him into the administrative building and start taking photographs of him. They try to explain it away by saying it’s a simple bureaucratic procedure. They have to update his file, they say. Illya doesn’t protest but he’d never heard of any of the other inmates getting their photograph re-taken, documenting their physical deterioration. However, Illya decides to forget about it and just lets himself enjoy the relief that comes with the reassignment.

* * *

It doesn’t last.

A few weeks later, the guards once again single him out during roll call.

This is it, Illya thinks. They figured out his reassignment had been a mistake. He waits for the order to rejoin the woodcutting brigade.

But the order doesn’t come.

Instead, two guards tell him to lead them to his barrack.

Illya doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he’s not quite suicidal enough to question the guards’ orders in front of everyone, so he does as he’s told.

Once they arrive at the barrack, they make Illya show them where he sleeps. “Any personal belongings you’d like to take with you?”

“I… what?”

“Are you deaf? I said, are there any personal belongings you’d like to take with you?”

“Where are you taking me?” Illya asks in lieu of pointing out that, except for the clothes he wears, he doesn’t have any personal belongings, as the guards ought to know. All the personal belongings he’d carried on his person at the time of his arrest had been confiscated. 

“We’re taking you away,” the guard replies. “So, no personal belongings?”

Illya shakes his head. “What do you mean when you say ‘away’?”

“Away from here.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No more questions.”

The guards urge him to leave the barrack. It’s the last time Illya will ever see it.

The guards asked him about personal belongings. If they were really going to kill him, they wouldn’t have bothered with that. Right? They’d have just ordered him to step forward during role call and put a bullet through his brain. Easier, quicker, a warning for the others.

Ten minutes later, Illya leaves the camp the same way he entered it four years ago. Blindfolded and handcuffed, in the back of a truck with no idea what’s going on.

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, the blindfold is removed. Much to his surprise, Illya finds himself in what he can only describe as a hotel room. The guards from the camp have been replaced by two grim-faced men and a pudgy middle-aged woman. The men don’t introduce themselves, but the woman flashes him a red KGB badge, identifying her as agent “Gertruda Maximovna Sorokina”.

“Take a shower and then change into these clothes. We had to guess your measurements, but they should fit you,” agent Sorokina says, gesturing to a few items of clothing folded over the back of the only chair in the room. “My friends here will make sure you don’t try to do anything stupid.”

Illya winces. The expressions on the men’s faces tell him that he’s going to take a shower, whether he wants to or not, and that it’s going to be a much more comfortable experience if he complies right from the start.

As he strips off his prison rags and steps into the shower, he’s pleasantly surprised to discover that the water is  _ warm _ . There’s a bar of soap, too. The lather smells sickly-sweet, a cheap imitation of lemon scent. Illya washes off the prison grime and replaces it with the scent of artificial lemon under the watchful eye of the agents. He lost all sense of privacy and shame at the camp, and so he takes his time in the shower – showering with warm water had been an unimaginable luxury for the past years. Illya plans to make the most of it. Who knows when he’ll ever get a chance to do so again?

Illya only steps out of the shower once he’s used up all the hot water. The new clothes are acceptable and as he exits the bathroom, he’s astonished to find that agent Sorokina had returned with a plate of sandwiches.

“Go on, eat,” she says.

“What’s going on here?” he asks instead. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t understand anything anymore. He’d been arrested four years ago, thrown into prison without a trial and everyone seemed pretty content to let him rot there. But suddenly they take him from the camp to somewhere else, allow him to shower and give him a whole new outfit… and now they give him food, too? Food that makes his mouth water, food that looks and smells leagues better than anything he’d had these past few years?

“You’ll find out soon enough,” agent Sorokina replies curtly before her expression softens somewhat. “You must be hungry. Eat.”

Illya reaches out and takes the first sandwich, devouring it in a few greedy bites. He finishes the sandwiches in record time before the agents can change their mind and take the food away from him. His stomach aches; it’s no longer used to being full.

Agent Sorokina gives the empty plate a look of approval and whispers instructions to the men. One of them leaves the room – to guard the door and prevent him from escaping, Illya assumes. The other one stays in the room with him.

“Sleep,” agent Sorokina says. “We’ll send for you tomorrow.”

* * *

Illya slept like the dead and only wakes up after one of the KGB agents shakes him awake none too gently.

There’s breakfast waiting for him. Breakfast and no explanation as to why he’s getting the luxury treatment. Agent Sorokina is back, and as Illya finishes his breakfast, she reaches into her purse and hands him two items with the words, “They belong to you, I think.”

The first one is his father’s watch. It had been taken from him when he’d first been arrested, and now it’s back, cleaned spotless and keeping the time perfectly. Speechless, Illya watches a few seconds tick by. He can’t bring himself to put it on just yet. Before, the watch was one of the very few connections to his father Illya had left. Now, though, it’s become little more than a trinket, the experience at the camp forever connecting Illya to his father in a way the watch never could.

The second item is his old wallet. With trembling fingers, he opens it and it’s as though nothing has happened to it. The amount of cash hasn’t changed, his driver’s license is still there (now expired), as well as his U.N.C.L.E. badge.

And a photograph of Gaby, blowing a kiss to the camera.

Illya can’t bring himself to look at it, not while the agents are watching.

“Thank you,” he says in a monotone voice, decides to forget about the wallet for now, and instead puts on his father’s watch. It looks like a foreign object now, no longer part of him. And it seems futile – why would you need a device to keep the time, when the guards do that for you? Wake-up calls, roll calls, meager breakfast, too-long shifts, dinner, political re-education seminars… the days are planned out for you. No need for a watch.

Wherever they’re taking him, Illya’s had been sentenced to ten years. Knowing the system, the only way he’ll not end up serving the full term is by dying before his release date. He might not be at the camp anymore, but wherever they’re taking him, Illya doubts he’ll have much need for a watch there, either. At least it doesn’t look like they’re gearing up for execution. The thought is not as reassuring as it sounds.

“Finished?” agent Sorokina asks.

Illya assents.

She gestures to the men, and Illya is once more blindfolded and put in handcuffs before he’s being led out of the room. Down the stairs, into the back of a truck and they’re off again. This journey is much shorter than the previous one - after less than an hour, the truck stops, and the men lead a still blindfolded and handcuffed Illya out of the truck, a few meters over flat ground and then up a narrow staircase.

“Duck or you'll hit your head,” one of the men grunts, as they manoeuver Illya through a narrow doorway.

When they remove the blindfold a few moments later, Illya realizes they’re in a plane. “What… where are you taking me? What’s happening?”

As the plane’s engines roar to life beside them, agent Sorokina gives him a stern look. “No questions.”

The plane gathers speed and lifts off. Illya would have liked to catch a glimpse of his surroundings by looking out the window, but all the windows are blackened out. He has no idea where they’re taking him and from the expressionless faces of the agents accompanying him, he’ll only find out what they’ve planned for him when they get to their destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts! <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented or left kudos on the previous chapter! <3

**Somewhere in Central Europe, 1968**

After a few hours of flight, the plane starts to descend. “It’s a prisoner exchange,” agent Sorokina finally explains as she undoes Illya’s handcuffs.

“A prisoner exchange?” Illya asks. 

“We get our best agent back, and in turn, they’ll get you. A good bargain, wouldn’t you agree?”

If the agent is to be believed – and Illya has learned to always expect being lied to – then he’s become a pawn in some diplomatic game. He keeps his mouth shut, not daring to comment on the news. Instead, he massages his aching wrists. The handcuffs had been far too tight.

“Hey! She was talking to you!”, one of the men barks as the plane touches down. “It’s a good bargain, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Illya mumbles. He’s tempted to ask who’s taken his place as the KGB’s best agent and how good they are, really, if they got caught and need to be bailed out, using Illya of all people as a bargaining chip. And with whom has the KGB been negotiating? The usual suspects, CIA, MI6, Mossad, and all the others, would only accept one of their own captured spies in exchange for a high-ranking KGB agent. None of this adds up, unless—

U.N.C.L.E.

It has to be U.N.C.L.E. – they’re the only intelligence agency he can think of whose spies know perfectly well how to outsmart and capture a KGB agent. After all, Illya had taught them all the tricks he’d ever learned.

But if he’s right and it’s indeed U.N.C.L.E., that means… His breath hitches. That means his boss, his friend, and his _girlfriend_ had sat by these past few years and didn’t do anything about Illya being thrown into prison. A ten-year-sentence without a trial and they didn’t try to contact him? Not even once? Even considering the remote possibility that every single one of Illya’s letters had fallen victim to censorship, Waverly is still the head of an international intelligence agency. He would have found a way to get a message to Illya if he’d only tried hard enough. Right?

“You’ll be meeting a familiar face,” agent Sorokina says with a curious facial expression Illya can’t quite interpret. It almost looks like… pity? “Agent Solo will be waiting for you. From what I’ve been told you were _intimately_ _acquainted_ with each other.”

Illya flinches. How did they find out? He’s never gotten close to _doing_ anything with Napoleon. Everything has been firmly confined to the realm of speculation, over-analysis of certain innuendos, and some pathetic fantasies Illya never shared with anyone. He’s never said anything out loud regarding his attraction to Napoleon, so how could the KGB have possibly found out? Unless… there could have been a snitch at the camp who told on him. A few years ago, there’d been a time when Illya would whisper Napoleon’s name almost as often as Gaby’s, a senseless night-time prayer invoking the names of people who’d seemingly been content to forget Illya even existed. He’d stopped saying their names once he’d accepted that he wouldn’t hear from them. Having finally given up hope for a letter, Illya felt slightly less pathetic, if a lot more embittered than before. Instead of pouring out his troubles and sorrows in embarrassing letters, he’d taken to bottling up his feelings, trying to numb himself to the daily injustices of prison as best as he could. However, that didn’t change the fact that he’d used to…

Illya doesn’t feel remotely ready to face Napoleon.

Why had he allowed himself to say the name out loud in the first place? _Stupid_ , he thinks. Once you get desperate enough, there’s precious little you wouldn’t do for the promise of a lower output target or extra food, including telling on your fellow inmates. Reflexively, Illya starts going through all the prisoners with whom he shared a barrack. Who’s most likely to snitch? A few moments later, he realizes it’s absolutely useless trying to figure out who told on him. He’s no longer at the camp and if things go right, he won’t be back. He doesn’t need to think about the trustworthiness of his fellow inmates anymore. No, there’s another problem, isn’t there?

If what agent Sorokina said is true, Illya will soon be reunited with his “intimate acquaintance”. More than that, if agent Sorokina knows, there’s no reason why Napoleon shouldn’t know as well. And if Napoleon knows, there’s virtually no chance Gaby doesn’t know, too. Could _that_ be part of the reason why Illya had never gotten a letter?

There’s no time to ponder the question, as agent Sorokina seems determined to do the exchange as quickly as possible. They get out of the plane, descend the stairs and Illya looks around, trying to spot Napoleon.

The delegation waiting for them on the airfield involves an U.N.C.L.E. agent, true, but it’s not Napoleon. No, the U.N.C.L.E. representative is none other than Gaby.

Illya gasps and nearly loses his footing when he recognizes her. If he thought he wasn’t ready to face Napoleon, it’s nothing compared to the shock of seeing Gaby. Agent Sorokina, misinterpreting his surprise as an attempt to sabotage a successful exchange, shoves him forward, taking advantage of the last few moments in which Illya is officially her prisoner.

Gaby’s jaw is clenched. Her eyes narrow at the sight of the agent pushing Illya, but her gaze doesn’t linger on Illya’s form for longer than a second.

She still looks as beautiful as Illya remembers. The sight of her alternately fills him with exuberant joy and self-destructive anger. She’s beautiful and he’s nothing more than a scarecrow, a broken husk of a man who has little to do with the Illya Kuryakin with whom Gaby Teller used to be in love.

She barely even looks at him when she exchanges her prisoner for Illya and remains oddly unemotional as she leads him to the plane waiting for them. Once they’re safely inside the plane, Gaby’s impassive façade crumbles. Before Illya has the chance to ask a single question, he already has his arms full of—who exactly? His girlfriend? His ex-girlfriend? Gaby’s shoulders are quivering, and it takes Illya a moment to realize she’s weeping against his chest, holding on to him for dear life.

“It’s really you,” she whispers, looking up at him. Her face is streaked with tears but she’s smiling. “I never thought we’d… until you stepped out of that plane, I was scared the KGB was having us on. Oh my god, it’s _really_ you.”

She reaches up to touch his face, as though she wants to assure herself that it’s not a carefully crafted mask, as though the solidity of his embrace was not enough to dispel her doubts. Illya flinches away from her touch.

Gaby’s face falls and she takes a step back.

Illya doesn’t understand what’s going on. Gaby seems to be elated to see him, but, at the same time, she didn’t write him a single letter for four long years. How does any of this fit together? In Illya’s mind, it doesn’t. “I don’t understand why you’re acting like this,” he says tonelessly, his clumsy tongue stumbling over the words after not speaking English for so long. “Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical?”

Reflexively, Gaby takes another half-step back. “What do you mean by that?”

“You’re crying as though you missed me so much, but I never got a reply to any of my letters? It didn’t feel like you were missing me.”

Gaby’s lower lip starts quivering and she stares at Illya with wide eyes, whispering: “You wrote me letters?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's going to be a tough conversation...
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you so much, guys! I was blown away by the response to the previous chapter <333

**Somewhere in Central Europe, 1968**

“You wrote me letters?” Gaby repeats incredulously.

“Of course I did! Did you think I forgot all about you just because they sent me to prison?!” He’s getting angry and loud, all the feelings he did his best to suppress over the years make a sudden reappearance. “I missed you so much! But whatever I wrote, whether I asked for a reply, whether I begged or pleaded… it didn’t make a difference. Why didn’t you reply?” He stops, breathing heavily after such a forceful emotional outburst. At the camp, this hasn’t happened in years – probably because his workload combined with the meager rations meant he didn’t even have the necessary energy. Now, though, after a good night’s sleep and two hearty meals, he’s well-rested and not hungry for the first time in years. More than that, he’s free and reunited with Gaby but the first thing he does…

Illya never thought it would be like that.

When he’d only just arrived at the camp, he’d still been hopeful. He used to imagine what he’d do after freeing himself and finding his way back to the woman he loved. Depending on his mood, the exact order of things had varied. But he always thought he’d embrace her, kiss her and tell her how much he’d missed her and how the memory of her had been the one bright light in the living hell that was the camp, the one thing that kept him from succumbing to darkness and despair.

Instead, the first thing he does is flinch away from her touch and tell her he feels neglected. Even if he’d actively tried to mess up, he could have hardly done a worse job. “Why did you never reply?” he asks, more quietly this time, in an attempt to soften his voice.

Gaby shakes her head. “I would have replied but I never even got a letter. Shortly after you left for Vladivostok, we received a message from the KGB. They said you’d vanished in the USSR and you were presumed dead. We tried to find out more, but they never gave us any other information and we thought… we thought if the KGB couldn’t find you…” She hesitates and looks up to meet Illya’s gaze. “I thought you were dead and I… I acted accordingly.”

Illya’s heartbeat is racing. He needs a minute to form a coherent thought. Gaby had never even gotten any of his letters – that explains why he’d never gotten a reply, no matter how much he’d pleaded. Gaby had treated him as though he was dead to her because, in her mind, he’d _been_ dead. Vanished somewhere in the Soviet Union, never to be seen again. His letters had probably been entertainment for the prison guards and fodder for the ovens, heating the guards’ barracks. They hadn’t even told him he’d been deprived of the right to correspondence, that’s how little he’d mattered in the camp hierarchy. Shame settles in his gut, solid as a stone. Gaby hadn’t done anything wrong, but Illya had snapped at her anyway, instead of waiting for her to explain herself. “So, because you never got any of the letters, you didn’t know I was alive the whole time,” he manages.

“No,” Gaby confirms. “If I’d gotten letters from you, I wouldn’t have… if I’d gotten letters, things would be different.” She anxiously bites her lip, and for the first time since their reunion, Illya notices that she tried to cover up the dark circles underneath her eyes with make-up, tell-tale signs of sleepless nights. Is she dealing with insomnia again? He thought she’d gotten over it, but… but that had been four years ago. Things had changed, as Gaby said.

“If we’d known you were… if we’d known what they did to you, we’d have gotten you out a lot sooner, I promise,” she says. Her voice breaks at the word “promise”. Illya’s heart starts hurting for her. “When Alexander first told us that the KGB offered to do a prisoner exchange, I was dead-set on declining their offer. But when I saw their proposal...I had a nervous breakdown right then and there. They said you were at that camp _the whole time_? What… what happened?”

“You remember my last mission?” Illya replies numbly. “It was a trap. I didn’t understand what was going on. My old KGB supervisor was there and told me I was a traitor who’d committed treason. They drugged me and when I woke up, I was already on my way to the camp and was told I’d have to serve ten years.” There’s more to it, much more, feelings like betrayal and anger and hopelessness, but Illya spent so much time convincing himself he wasn’t affected by any of those emotions that it’s become difficult to put them into words. At the moment, all he can give to Gaby is the bare-bones version of his ordeal. Given enough time, perhaps, he’ll find the words to describe his experiences one day.

Right now, all that comes out is a choked-off “It was _bad_.”

Gaby gives him an encouraging look.

Illya opens his mouth, but he can’t— funny how he could strip down and take a long shower without any sense of shame while KGB agents were watching him, but talking about his feelings with the woman he once thought he’d spend his life with?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I can’t… not now… I need more time. I hope you understand.”

“Of course,” Gaby says and brushes a strand of her hair out of her face. “Take all the time you need.” Something on her left-hand catches Illya’s eye. She’s still wearing the fake engagement ring he gave her back in Rome, to replace the one he’d been forced to give to the sorry excuse for muggers the Vinciguerras had sent to tail them. In the years since Illya’s ring on Gaby’s finger has acquired a companion. A delicate golden wedding band sits next to the engagement ring, catching the light in a treacherous twinkle.

Illya’s heart skips a beat.

_I thought you were dead._

_I acted accordingly._

_If I’d gotten letters from you, I wouldn’t have…_

“You got married,” Illya says in a hollow voice. “Didn’t you?”

“How did you—”

“The ring.”

“Oh,” Gaby says, looking at the incriminating piece of evidence on her finger. “I… yes, I got married,” she confesses.

Illya takes a deep breath. Just when he thought everything is eventually going to be okay, his world tilts again. Gaby thought he was dead and in the four years which have passed since his disappearance, she got married to another man.

“When?”

Gaby looks at him, brown eyes glittering with unshed tears. “Six months ago,” she whispers. She’s trembling and at first, Illya doesn’t know why. It takes him a few seconds to understand she’s afraid of his reaction. But why? What does she expect him to do? Fall apart right in front of her, while there are other agents and flight attendants present? He won’t. 

He _mustn’t_. 

_It doesn’t mean she’s never loved you_ , he tells himself. It just means she took the KGB at face value, believed Illya to be dead, grieved for him, and moved on. She deserves to be happy, but it still hurts to learn that he’s come home too late.

“Is… is he a good husband?” Illya asks reluctantly, not sure if he even wants to hear the answer. “Does he make you happy?”

“He is and he does,” Gaby replies and inadvertently starts smiling. She catches herself and the smile disappears, only to be replaced by a more neutral expression. But it’s too late, Illya has seen her smile and he suspects that the man Gaby married is a much better husband and makes her much happier than she wants to let on in front of Illya.

“That’s… that’s good,” he replies awkwardly. “That’s good to hear.”

Gaby tries catching Illya’s eye, but he deliberately avoids her gaze. She knows him too well. He might be good enough to fool the guards at the camp, but not her. If he were to look into her eyes, Gaby would undoubtedly realize how much he’s hurting, and she’d blame herself for it. It’s nobody’s fault but Illya’s, if he’d been stronger, found a way to escape the camp and survive for long enough to get a message to U.N.C.L.E., then… then he might not be sitting in a plane, a few kilometers up in the air, listening to the woman he loves tell him about how she found happiness with someone else. He almost starts wishing he was back at the camp. There, at least, life had been predictable. Resentment and bitterness, intermingling with exhaustion and a pathetic attachment to life. He could handle that. But this?

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Gaby says, as a cautious smile spreads over her features. A fragile, fledgling thing. Easily spooked and closely gaging Illya’s reaction.

Illya is ready for everything. After finding out that Gaby, in fact, hadn’t forgotten about him, but had instead gotten married to someone else in the meantime, he can’t think of anything that could shock him.

“Shortly after you were arrested, I found out I was pregnant. We have a daughter.”

Illya stares at her. His brain hasn’t yet caught up with the meaning of Gaby’s words. “We have a daughter?” he repeats, still incredulous, as though speaking the words would make him believe it. They hadn’t been trying for a child, but… if he’d known… Gaby had been pregnant, and he hadn’t been there. Even worse, she thought he’d died. Illya recalls the content of some of his never-sent letters. Who would have thought he’d one day thank the guards for not sending the letters? 

He’s overwhelmed, he wants to know everything all at once, trying to catch up on four missed years during a single trans-Atlantic flight. “What… how… is she…?” he sputters. 

Gaby starts rummaging around in her purse. Once she’s found what she’s looking for, she hands him a stack of photographs. The first one shows a toddler, looking at the camera with a timid smile. “Napoleon says she looks just like you,” Gaby says, as Illya lays eyes on his daughter for the first time, three years too late. Bright blue eyes, blond hair, but Gaby’s features.

“Well, he’s wrong,” Illya replies. “I think she has your face.”

“I thought so, too!”

Gaby’s smile widens and it’s suddenly so easy to grin at her in response. For the first time since his release from the camp, he doesn’t feel the years of imprisonment weighing him down, happiness has become such a foreign sensation in the years since that experiencing it now almost feels like floating. For the first time since his arrest, Illya doesn’t feel like a traitor, doesn’t feel forgotten and abandoned. It’s the simplest, most beautiful thing in the world, isn’t it? A mother and a father, smiling at each other, united in love for their child.

Then Illya remembers the new ring on Gaby’s finger and his smile withers away as quickly as it bloomed. “And what does—” He catches himself before he can ask who Gaby’s new husband thinks their daughter looks like. “What’s her name?” he corrects himself.

“Her name’s Nadya. I thought it’d be fitting. There’s not enough hope in the world as it is.”

Illya looks through the other photographs, trying to get an idea of what he’s missed. One photograph shows Gaby curled up in the living room, a newborn cradled in her arms. It’s followed by a photograph of a slightly older Nadya clutching her first teddy bear. Illya sees a photograph in which Nadya beams at the camera, perched atop Napoleon’s shoulders, and a photograph of Nadya blowing out three candles on her birthday cake, while Gaby looks on proudly. Gaby teaching Nadya how to walk, Nadya opening Christmas presents with Napoleon… Illya can’t help but notice the small mercy Gaby has bestowed upon him. None of the photographs show her husband. He’s pathetically grateful for that – he’s not ready to face the man who’s replaced him as Gaby’s partner. If Illya’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t even want to think about him, that nameless husband who doesn’t seem to mind raising another man’s child while his wife still wears another man’s ring. Does Nadya think of Gaby’s husband as her father? Does she call him—

If the photographs are any indication, Nadya is a happy child, far from the sullen, taciturn boy Illya had become after his father had been taken away. Illya always rejected his mother’s ever-changing “friends” after his father’s arrest, stubbornly clinging to the memory of Nikolay Kuryakin. Nadya, on the other hand, has never even met Illya and she’s probably far too young to mourn for a father she never got to know.

“Can I… can I meet her?” Illya asks hesitantly.

“Of course!” Gaby replies, smiling excitedly.

Illya likes to believe he could be part of her life if he learns to discard his experiences at the camp and become the man he used to be with Gaby. Less burdened by the past, less weighed down by a toxic cocktail mixed from shame, guilt, and anger. Then, perhaps, he’d be ready to face the daunting task of fatherhood. But only then.

He turns his gaze back on the photographs, sees Napoleon’s frozen smile while Nadya clumsily unwraps a Christmas present. Napoleon looks carefree in an offhand way Illya could only try and fail to emulate and for which he’d privately envied Napoleon more than once. It’s one thing to let this man be a part of Nadya’s life, a man who, for all intents and purposes, looks as though he’d shrugged off both war and prison and walked away unscathed. A man so unlike Illya. Every day at the camp left traces and turned him mean, half-crazed eyes blazing with anger. It used to be a good survival strategy at the camp since it kept the other prisoners at bay. But who in their right mind would let such a man near the little girl in the photographs?

“Really?” he asks. “I thought you wouldn’t… you might not…”

“You thought I might not what?”

“I thought you wouldn’t want me to…” he tries to explain, words getting stuck in his throat. “Just look at me. Nobody would trust … nobody would…”

Gaby reaches out and takes a hold of Illya’s hand. Her skin is soft and warm, a stark contrast to his calloused palm.

“Illya, I know you,” she says, voice saturated with pain. “And I know you wouldn’t do anything to bring harm to our daughter.”

The words slip out before he can stop himself. “Yes, but does your _husband_ know that, too?” he spits, having somehow managed to make “husband” sound like a slur.

“Of course! He trusts you just as much as I do!”

“Why would he trust a man he’s never even met?!”

“What are you talking about? You _have_ met him,” Gaby replies, furrowing her brows. “Illya, who do you think I married?”

"I... I don't know."

“I thought the photographs cleared that up.”

Illya looks at the photographs again, but besides Gaby and Nadya, he only sees—

“Napoleon? You got married to Napoleon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts! <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that chapter took some doing! I promise I wasn't keeping you in suspense on purpose, I just really struggled with this chapter - I've lost count of how many times I've rewritten it until I was finally satisfied with the chapter. Hope you like it! <333

**Somewhere over the Atlantic, 1968**

“You got married to Napoleon?” he blurts out. “How… why…  _ what _ ? Gaby, I remember we used to joke that he would never settle down. A few years later and boom, suddenly he’s raising our daughter?”

“He was there to support me as a friend after you disappeared,” Gaby mumbles, anxiously fiddling with her wedding ring. “We started spending more time together, not just as colleagues at work, but as friends. And the more time we spent together, the more we started to like each other. After a while, getting married seemed like the obvious thing to do.”

“I never thought he’d be the type to take on that sort of responsibility.” Even as Illya says it, his words sound hollow and he mutters something to the effect that Gaby should forget he said anything. Who is he to speak about responsibility? He’d been in Siberia, embittered, hateful, and convinced Gaby had forgotten all about him. Napoleon Solo, philanderer, and confirmed bachelor had been there for Gaby during the pregnancy and he’d helped her raise Nadya for the past three years. A few hours ago, Illya hadn’t even known he had a daughter.

Knowing what Gaby did during the four years they hadn’t seen each other, Illya suddenly feels a lot less guilty for fantasizing about Napoleon at night. Agent Sorokina’s aside about “Agent Solo” and Illya being “intimately acquainted with each other ” takes on a new meaning, too. All along, she’d been telling him that his former girlfriend had gotten married. She hadn’t been trying to taunt Illya with his embarrassing attraction to Napoleon, he’d been nervous for all the wrong reasons. At least Illya had only been  _ thinking  _ about Napoleon. Gaby on the other hand... A part of him wishes he could feel angry. He suspects it would be easier if he could yell, and scream, and cry to vent his frustration. Instead, he can’t even bring himself to begrudge Gaby for growing closer to Napoleon. After Illya’s incarceration, Gaby must have felt incredibly lonely. She’d said it herself. If she’d gotten his letters… if only she’d known he was alive…

It’s one thing to accept Gaby developing feelings for Napoleon. But marriage? In Illya’s mind, marriage and Napoleon don’t go together. He remembers Napoleon having a never-ending string of short-lived flings and avoiding commitment like the plague. The man who used to say he wasn’t meant to be a parent and that he’d never have children, willingly letting himself be tied down by marriage, raising a daughter who wasn’t even his own? Preposterous.

It would never have occurred to Illya to view Napoleon through the lens of fatherhood. He re-examines the photograph in which Nadya unwraps Christmas presents with Napoleon and tries to imagine himself in the situation instead. He catches a glimpse of the mantelpiece in the background. It’s filled with framed photographs, snapshots furnishing the family home. He narrows his eyes, trying to make out the pictures with which Gaby and Napoleon decided to decorate the house. To his surprise, Illya recognizes a photograph of himself - the one Napoleon had taken of Gaby and him in Istanbul, shortly after they’d gotten together. They’d been young, drunk on infatuation, and blessedly unaware of what the future would bring. The photograph had only been taken five years ago, but as far as Illya is concerned, it could have easily been taken in another life. The smiling man in the photograph seems like an entirely different person; Illya can hardly believe he’s ever been that man. In retrospect, his entire relationship with Gaby feels like an anomaly. If his life is any indication, he’s not supposed to be as happy as he’d been with her and he’d been punished for daring to experience that brief period of joy. In a way, he’s still being punished - Gaby might be less than a meter away, but she’s still effectively out of his reach.

Even if she’d gotten his letters, had waited for him and not given her heart to Napoleon in the meantime, Illya is no longer the man Gaby had fallen in love with. Perhaps it’s better this way. Gaby, Napoleon, and Nadya are a family. Illya would only ever be an outsider, he'd never be part of their family, he’d never truly  _ belong _ . Yes, he’d asked Gaby whether he could meet Nadya, but what good would it do? How much time would he be able to spend with his daughter? A few hours on a Sunday afternoon, every other week? And would it even be beneficial for Nadya to spend time with him, a broken shell of a man she didn’t know? So far, she’d only gotten to know her father as the smiling, happy man in the photograph on the mantelpiece. In addition to that, Gaby might have told her stories about Illya, carefully edited to leave out all the ugly parts in an effort to only say good things about Nadya’s dead father. In time, Nadya would have learned to relate those stories to the man in the photograph, and she’d have constructed an image of her father as an eternally young, strong, and beautiful man who’d loved her mother very much and who’d have surely loved his daughter, too, if only he had lived.

But Illya  _ had  _ lived. And now what? The camp had warped him almost beyond recognition, he doesn’t know if he can ever leave those experiences behind and he’s reminded of an afternoon when he’d been very young - his family had still been intact and the world seemed kind. Illya visited the zoo with his father. At the zoo, he’d seen a wolf, a mangy, skinny beast which had prowled along the iron bars of its cage. It kept eying the visitors with suspicion and sometimes went so far as to growl at them.

A few kids who were a little older than Illya had turned it into a game; they were picking up pebbles and throwing them at the wolf, who snarled and snapped at them, but the cage’s sturdy bars kept its sharp teeth firmly out of reach, protecting the perpetrators.

“Why doesn’t the wolf back away?” Illya had asked his father. “If it just stepped back, the pebbles wouldn’t reach it. The kids can’t throw them that far.”

“It’s an animal, Illya. It doesn’t know any better,” his father had replied. Illya had not been satisfied with that answer, and so his father continued: “The cage is all it’s ever known. The wolf doesn’t know there’s another life, another way to be. And sometimes, when you’ve been hurt for so long, all you want to do is lash out and you don’t care if it’s the rational thing to do or not.”

“But that’s unfair!” Illya had protested. “If the wolf doesn’t know any better, then those kids should know better,” he’d added, sending a dirty look in their direction, with all the righteous indignation he was capable of as an eight-year-old.

His father had sighed, ruffled Illya’s hair, and went to tell the kids to leave the animal alone. Once they recognized Nikolay Kuryakin as a member of the politburo, who had the power to make people disappear with just one phone call to his friend at the Kremlin, they bolted.

Pleased with himself, Illya turned his attention back to the wolf, expecting a wagging tail as an expression of gratitude for its savior. Instead, the wolf growled at him, not being able to tell the difference between kindness and aggression.

Has Illya’s imprisonment affected him in a similar way? Is he just going to lash out and hurt the people he loves, not knowing when to back off? He’d already hurt Gaby, hadn’t he? He’d chosen to yell at her for not writing him letters before she’d had the opportunity to explain herself. How is he ever going to raise a daughter if--

Illya’s gaze turns to his wrist, to his father’s watch. Perhaps Illya could give the watch to Nadya one day, as a family heirloom. From experience, he knows how much you can project onto such a trinket. A photograph, a few stories, and a watch. It would add up to the invented memory of a better father than Illya would ever be able to be. Because Nadya doesn’t even need him to be a father, does she? Napoleon is already filling that role and if Gaby is telling the truth, he’s doing a good job.

Illya’s daughter doesn’t need him.

And Gaby doesn’t need him, either.

The photographs project an almost surreal atmosphere of domestic bliss. Gaby and Napoleon have built a life together, a life that looks much too perfect to leave any room for Illya. He can’t shake the nagging suspicion that he’d only ruin the perfect picture, should he ever get involved. Would Nadya even want a father like him? He sincerely doubts it. Illya only wants the best for his daughter. But what if it turns out the best he can do for Nadya is staying away from her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts! <333


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the nice comments on the previous chapter! This time, we're taking a little break from Illya's POV and return to Napoleon (and Nadya makes her first appearance, yay!) Enjoy :)

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1968**

“The prince was overcome with grief, and in his despair, he threw himself from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell poked out his eyes. Blind, he wandered about in the forest, eating nothing but grass and roots, and doing nothing but weeping and wailing over the loss of his beloved wife,” Napoleon reads aloud.

Nadya’s heard so many fairy tales, she ought to know there’s a happily ever after waiting just around the corner. Still, she listens attentively, as though the prince would not find his way back to his wife if she didn’t hang on Napoleon’s every word.

“Thus,” Napoleon continues, “The prince wandered about miserably for some years, finally happening into the wilderness where Rapunzel lived with the twins that she had given birth to. He heard a voice and thought it was familiar. He advanced toward it, and as he approached, Rapunzel recognized him, and crying, threw her arms around his neck. Two of her tears fell into his eyes, and they became clear once again, and he could see as well as before. He led her into his kingdom, where he was received with joy, and for a long time, they lived happily and satisfied,” Napoleon concludes and closes the fairy tale book.

“No!” Nadya protests. “I want another story!”

“Another one?” Napoleon asks in mock surprise. “But your eyelids are already starting to droop! Aren’t you tired?”

It’s already way past Nadya’s bedtime. It rarely takes her this long to fall asleep at night, but tonight, she’s fighting bedtime every step of the way. Gaby won’t be coming home until late at night, but Nadya is determined to wait for her mother’s return, and she won’t go to sleep until Gaby comes home, or so she’d told Napoleon earlier. He’d tried to reason with her, but Nadya had stubbornly persisted. Eventually, Napoleon had given up and resolved to keep Nadya entertained until she fell asleep.

“Another story!” Nadya insists, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a yawn.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Another story, please?”

Napoleon smiles and lets Nadya choose the next story she’d like to hear based on the illustrations in the book. After careful deliberation, Nadya settles on “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and Napoleon starts reading the story to his daughter… Illya’s daughter… his daughter.

At the halfway point of the story, Nadya has already dozed off, but Napoleon nevertheless finishes reading the fairy tale. After making sure that Nadya has fallen into a deep slumber, Napoleon puts the storybook down on the bedside table. Gently, he places a kiss on Nadya’s forehead. Before he turns off the light and closes the bedroom door behind him, he turns back to look at Nadya, sleeping peacefully. A little intrusive thought tells him he’d better commit the sight to memory. This might be the last time he had that particular interaction with Nadya. It won’t be long until she meets her real father and she’ll no longer need to depend on a stand-in. Napoleon does his best to ignore that thought and makes his way down the stairs.

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, Napoleon pauses for a second to catch his breath. His knee is giving him even more trouble than usual, which he chalks up to the fact that he spent most of the day on his feet, against the advice of his physical therapist. He’s still recovering from being kneecapped on a mission a few months ago. Walking is possible, but not without a pronounced limp. For now, Napoleon relies on a cane. It’s unclear whether he’ll ever be able to go on a mission again, but the prospect doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it would have in the past. While a desk job is much more boring than fieldwork, it’s also much safer, dramatically increasing Nadya’s chances to have at least one of her parents live long enough to see her grow up to adulthood.

What’s taking Gaby so long? Napoleon readjusts the grip on his cane and realizes his hands are trembling. He tells himself to stop worrying. It doesn’t work.

It used to be the easiest thing in the world to say “It was nice while it lasted” and move on without looking back. Perhaps he’s just out of practice. When the time comes - and it’ll come soon enough - he’ll remember how to uproot himself and pretend as though nothing has ever happened between him and Gaby. And Nadya is still so young… if she’s going to remember Napoleon at all, those memories are going to seem like a blurry, half-forgotten dream, certainly nothing worth getting upset over.

It had been frighteningly easy to settle into life as a married couple, maybe even easier than adjusting to parenthood. In the past, when Gaby and Napoleon had still made token efforts to hide their relationship and their rapidly evolving feelings for each other, they periodically used to catch themselves doubting their actions. Was it right to allow things to progress this way, to feel this happy and content with life when none of this would ever have happened if Illya were still with them?

Some nights, Gaby still ends up crying at night after Nadya has fallen asleep, crying because she wishes Illya could somehow be part of this and see his daughter grow up. Napoleon holds her close, then, feeling just as helpless as he did when they first heard of Illya’s disappearance.

But try as they might, they no longer manage to feel ashamed or guilty for how things turned out.

Gaby used to say if she’d been the one to pass away, she’d have wanted Illya to find happiness again, too, no matter which forms it might have taken. For her, it just happens to come in the form of a perhaps slightly unconventional family consisting of her, Nadya, and Napoleon.

Things change.

People change.

If he’s being honest with himself, Napoleon is pathetically grateful that they opted against a grand wedding ceremony. It would be in poor taste, he thinks, if Illya walked into their house and among the first things he saw would be a grand display of Gaby’s wedding to Napoleon. But isn’t that a stupid train of thought in and of itself? As though Peril would need a photograph to tip him off, not when the truth is out there for everyone to see. Both Gaby and Napoleon are wearing wedding rings. It doesn’t take Peril seeing a photograph of Napoleon in his best tuxedo, standing next to Gaby in a white dress, the two of them smiling at the camera. Not when Gaby has taken Napoleon’s name. Not when Napoleon has adopted Nadya.

Napoleon unloads the dishwasher, takes out the trash, and wipes down every surface in the kitchen. When he’s run out of tasks, he finds himself contemplating rearranging the furniture in the living room. ‘Get a grip,’ he tells himself and switches on the TV, hardly paying attention to the program playing in the background. Anything’s better than waiting alone in a quiet house for Gaby’s return. Waiting for Gaby and Peril to return, he corrects himself. If everything goes as planned, it will be Gaby and Peril. If things don’t go as planned, it’ll just be Gaby. And in case things go completely south… well, Napoleon’s not going to think about that for now.

After Waverly had shown them KGB’s proposal, the one which revealed that Illya has been alive and suffering this whole time, Napoleon had waited until they’d been back in the privacy of their home and said, “If you want to file for divorce, I won’t hold it against you. Just cite infidelity or something. And child support… we’d figure something out.”

At the time, Gaby had immediately shaken her head, protesting his suggestion. “But I don’t  _ want  _ to get divorced!”

Napoleon hadn’t pressed on, then. Instead, he’d decided he was just going to wait it out. Once Gaby meets Illya again, her feelings on the matter could easily change. She just might decide she wants a divorce after all. The assumption isn’t unreasonable. Gaby has never stopped loving Illya. Napoleon knows this. He also knows he’s always been Gaby’s plan B, a make-shift solution if you will. Sure, he’s always had chemistry with Gaby, but if Illya had been there all along, they probably would have never acted on it. A little bit of flirting here, some harmless teasing there, and that would have been it. But now? They’ve crossed pretty much all the lines there ever were, growing into an odd couple along the way and to their astonishment, it works better than they had ever imagined.

That doesn’t mean it’s built to last.

He’d better be prepared for having to abandon it all at the drop of a hat, to hand his responsibilities over to Peril, move out, get a bachelor pad somewhere and carry on as though nothing has ever happened.

He hears the sound of the key turning in the lock and limps towards the front door, not knowing what to expect. Gaby’s reaction? He can gauge that pretty well, but who knows what Illya might do… it gets hard to breathe for a second, as he remembers Peril’s arms around his throat, mercilessly cutting off his air supply. For a few terrifying seconds, Napoleon had thought he was going to die in that West Berlin bathroom. Of course, they’d gone from being enemies to being allies in the meantime, but that had been  _ before _ …

The door opens.

As it turns out, Napoleon didn’t have to be worried about incurring Illya’s hatred.

Gaby enters the hallway, alone. Her shoulders are slumped forward; there are fresh tear tracks on her cheeks.

“Where’s Peril?” Napoleon whispers. “Is he…? Did they…?”

Gaby dejectedly shakes her head, wraps her arms around her husband, and clings close to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts! 
> 
> PS: If you want to read that version of Rapunzel in its entirety, here you go: https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm012.html


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who left kudos and/or commented on the previous chapter! <3

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1968**

Gaby clings close to Napoleon, trying to gather what’s left of her strength. Contrary to Illya hours earlier, Napoleon returns the embrace, wrapping his arms around her to pull her closer.

She still has this, she tells herself. No matter how things might continue with Illya, at least she hasn’t lost this.

Napoleon presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

Gaby takes a deep breath. Why can’t she stay like this forever, wrapped in her husband’s embrace, pretending to be safe from the outside world?

Much too soon, though, Napoleon pulls back. “What happened?” he asks. “Are you hurt? Where’s Illya? Is he… was it a set-up?”

“No,” Gaby replies. “Illya’s alive, but he’s… the exchange didn’t go too well.”

“I suppose if it had gone well, you’d have come home smiling,” Napoleon says quietly.

“How’s Nadya?” Gaby asks, wiping at her eyes to compose herself.

“Asleep at last,” Napoleon replies. “She was determined to stay awake and wait for you to get home. She didn’t, obviously. I kept reading fairy tales to her until she fell asleep.”

Gaby breathes a sigh of relief. “I’m going to freshen up and then I’ll answer your questions, alright?” she suggests.

Napoleon agrees.

Upstairs, Gaby opens the door to Nadya’s bedroom and peeks into the room. Seeing her daughter sleeping peacefully takes a weight off her mind. She still has this, she tells herself once more for good measure. Still, she has to fight the selfish impulse to wake Nadya, to hug her and shower her with kisses, just to chase away the memory of the vacant, embittered look in Illya’s eyes he’d been sporting for the past few hours.

Instead, she closes the door as quietly as possible and drags herself to the bath. After wiping off the pitiful rest of her make-up, she undresses, gathers her hair in a high bun, and steps into the shower. The hot water eases the tension in her muscles, but her anxiety remains. No matter what, she can’t forget the look in Illya’s eyes and the childhood memories it had brought back, memories of the men who’d come home from the war, taciturn and brooding, with that very same haunted look in their eyes.

Gaby’s foster mother had had a younger brother, Gustav. He’d been sent to fight in the East, where he was taken prisoner by the Red Army. For years, Gaby’s foster mother hadn’t heard from him.

It must have been a few years after the end of the war. Gaby can’t recall the exact year, she only remembers that she’d been playing outside with some of the other kids from the neighborhood. Her foster mother was hanging the laundry up to dry. Suddenly, a bedraggled young man who was missing his left hand walked up to Gaby’s foster mother and started talking to her. At first, she made excuses and said he must have gotten the address wrong. It took her an embarrassingly long time until she recognized who she was talking to. Gaby saw her foster mother’s whole expression change, then she pulled the stranger into a hug and introduced him to Gaby as “your uncle Gustav”.

The thing Gaby remembers most clearly about Gustav is the look in his eyes, the same look she’d also seen on Illya’s face. Gustav lived with Gaby’s foster family for over a year. Living space had been scarce in the bombed-out city, living conditions were subpar at best and it didn’t take much for feelings to run high and arguments to break out. When sober, Gustav barely said a word and he certainly never spoke about his experiences as a soldier and as a prisoner of war. But when he was drunk - and that started happening more and more often as time went on - the alcohol would loosen his tongue and he would start talking. Not that Gaby ever heard many of Gustav’s stories, because that was usually the moment when her foster parents very sternly told her to leave the room. Even in her bedroom, Gaby could hear the ensuing arguments and the shouting, but she could never make out more than a few scraps of conversation at a time. Her foster mother used to be afraid that the neighbors might hear them and start talking behind their backs. In Gaby’s opinion, that fear was largely unwarranted, because every family she knew in which someone had returned from the war had similar stories to tell.

However, when Gustav moved out and went to West Germany instead of staying in East Berlin, Gaby was far from disappointed. The atmosphere at home improved after Gustav’s departure and for the first time since his arrival, Gaby felt as though she could breathe easier again. Letters from Gustav arrived sporadically, but Gaby never read any of them nor was she interested in learning what had become of him.

Now, she wishes she’d paid more attention - had Gustav ever managed to come to terms with his experiences and recovered? Had he gone on to live a normal life and just lost contact with his sister? Or had he been a haunted man for the rest of his life? And what does that mean for Illya? What does it mean for _her_?

She steps out of the shower, towels off, and rubs body lotion into her skin. Towel wrapped around herself, she traipses into the bedroom and dresses in a comfortable pajama, before making her way downstairs again.

Napoleon is sitting there on the sofa, waiting for her, with two glasses and a bottle of Bourbon on the coffee table. “I thought we could both use a drink for this conversation.”

“Good call,” she sighs and sits down next to him, gladly accepting the glass of Bourbon he hands her.

“So?” he prompts. “You said it wasn’t a set-up. But where’s Illya?”

Gaby shivers and downs half her drink in one gulp to warm up. “In one of our safe houses in the city,” she says, shrugging helplessly. “I offered to stay with him and help him get settled in but he refused.”

In fact, Illya had brushed her off with a laconic “I think you have a husband and daughter waiting at home.”

“He used to think we’d forgotten him, can you imagine?” Gaby continues. “After the KGB handed him over to us, the first thing he did was ask me why I never bothered to reply to his letters.”

Napoleon furrows his brows. “Hang on, did you just say letters? Peril wrote letters?”

Gaby nods dejectedly. “Either the letters didn’t get through or the KGB confiscated them all. And I think we both know which of the two is more likely.”

“I mean, you cleared that up right away, didn’t you? We both know that letters would have changed everything and--”

“Of course I cleared it up!” Gaby cuts in finishes her drink and immediately pours herself another one. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he never heard from us, does it? He began to think we didn’t care about him.”

“But now he knows that we haven’t forgotten him, right? And that we do care?”

Gaby takes a sip of Bourbon. “Yes, but then he noticed my wedding ring,” she replies, bitterness creeping into her voice. “He wasn’t thrilled, obviously, but he seemed to accept it. Until he figured out that I’d gotten married to you, that is.”

“He didn’t take it well, huh?” Napoleon says.

Gaby snorts. “Do you think we’d be sitting here like this otherwise?”

If Illya had taken it well, Gaby’s eyes wouldn’t be swollen from crying and they wouldn’t be self-medicating with liquor, pondering the various ways in which they made an irreparable mess of it, all while trying to do the things that seemed right at the time.

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He got really quiet. I kept trying to talk to him, but he wouldn’t… he told me he just wanted to get all the formalities over with. I asked him whether he still wanted to meet Nadya because earlier he said he wanted to, but it was like talking to a brick wall. I couldn’t get through to him anymore.” She sighs and bites her lip. “I left him the photographs I brought. Maybe he’ll change his mind if he has another look at them and decides he wants to meet Nadya after all. I wouldn’t bet on it though, he seemed pretty angry with us.”

Napoleon swirls his bourbon around in his glass. “I mean, he just got out of prison. Maybe he just needs time to process all this new information and then he’ll come around? What do you think?”

Gaby shrugs. “I have no idea. After he found out about us, he hardly said a word to me and I’m not exaggerating. Maybe you’re right, maybe he really just needs time. But you and I both know how pig-headed he can be when he wants to.”

“So I’m guessing you didn’t talk about the camp either? About what happened to him there? The KGB wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information... ” Napoleon trails off because Gaby is shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

“You didn’t see him,” she says. “At first, I almost didn’t recognize him. He got so _thin_. He said basically nothing about the camp itself except that it was bad, but as to how he got there… Apparently, his last mission was a set-up, he was drugged and sent to the camp.”

Napoleon frowns. “That doesn’t sound at all like what the KGB told us,” he remarks.

“That’s what I thought. I have half a mind to go through the old files again and see if I can find anything. Maybe we’ve overlooked something, and I could have helped him if I’d only known what I was supposed to be looking for!”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Napoleon says quietly, setting his glass down and wrapping his arms around Gaby in a loose embrace. “Don’t blame yourself,” he repeats. “We both know those files by heart. If there’d been a clue, we would have found it.”

They’d spent sleepless nights poring over the files. If the KGB wasn’t going to tell them why Illya was missing and why no-one had ever found a body and if Waverly only ever got variants of the same “missing, presumed dead”-spiel whenever he inquired after his agent’s whereabouts, then perhaps they could find out a clue.

They never found one. The KGB didn’t even supply enough information to contradict itself. It had been an incredibly frustrating experience. “If you really want to, feel free to have a look at the file again. I’ll help in any way I can, I promise,” Napoleon says. “But… Illya’s back, isn’t he? That’s what matters. In the end, he’ll come around, I’m sure.”

“You weren’t there,” Gaby counters. “Once Illya figured out that we were married, he pretty much just stared at the photos. It felt as though he’d forgotten that I was even there. When I tried talking to him, he just… I only got monosyllabic answers, nothing that would... I just don’t know.”

“Look, you said Peril wanted to meet Nadya? And that he initially even accepted the fact that you’d gotten married?” Napoleon asks.

Gaby nods hesitantly. “What’s your point?”

“It sounds like he’s angry with me, not with you. So, that’s good, right?”

“Why would you think it’s good if Illya’s angry with you”?

“Isn’t it obvious? Give him some time to get settled in and then you can reconnect. He might even reconsider and decide he wants to meet Nadya after all. As long as I’m the one he has issues with--”

“Did you think this through?” Gaby cuts in. “Because I don’t think you did. How do you think we’d be able to keep this separate? I mean, it’s not as though Nadya and I don’t have anything to do with you. You’re kind of part of the deal.”

Napoleon sighs, caressing Gaby’s cheek. “I know, but if push comes to shove… you know there’s another option.”

“Another option?” Gaby repeats skeptically and decides she doesn’t like the way it sounds.

“My offer is still on the table,” Napoleon clarifies. “Just because we said ‘I do’ doesn’t mean you’re stuck with me forever.”

Gaby suppresses the urge to frown. “Why do you keep mentioning divorce?” she asks, disentangling herself from Napoleon’s embrace. “I don’t want to get divorced.”

“Look, you might change your mind and if you do, I wouldn’t be offended,” he says and has the audacity to smile, as though he’s just made a _joke_. “If you realize you’re in a situation that’s no longer serving you and you want out… I just want you to know that I’d understand. Believe me, I’d understand.”

Gaby shivers. A few hours ago, the man whose disappearance broke her had turned his back on her and walked away, even though she’d told him they were parents, that he’d been missed, that he was loved… and now the man who’d helped Gaby put herself back together after Illya’s disappearance keeps mentioning divorce like a broken record. How did he just refer to their marriage? “A situation that’s no longer serving you” - is that how Napoleon sees it? Does he think they could just turn back the time and pretend as though the last few years together never happened? For her part, Gaby’s poured her heart and her soul into this relationship…

But maybe Napoleon is different.

Maybe he _can_ just forget all about it.

Maybe it never meant as much to him as to Gaby.

Maybe she just never caught on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter, but then again, my brain is fried after all the stress of the previous week - I'm sure a lot of you can sympathize ;)
> 
> Let me know what you think, please - I really appreciate hearing from you guys! <333


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, let me just say I was blown away by the response to the previous chapter, you guys! Thank you so much <333

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1968**

“I could stay for a while if you’d like?” Gaby asks quietly, sporting a tentative smile. “Help you get settled in?”

Illya avoids looking into her eyes because it makes him think of everything that could have been, everything he’s lost, and if he had to spend more time with her alone, trying to get “settled in”, it’ll just make it that much worse. He’s already hurt her because he can’t seem to control his temper – before, he’d thought he’d been making good progress, but the camp had reversed all of it and if push comes to shove… he doesn’t want Gaby to see him like that, and anyway, hasn’t she already seen too much?

“What do you say?” Gaby asks, reminding him of her proposal. She still sounds hopeful.

“No,” Illya says and shakes his head. “Good night, Gaby.”

“But you’re—"

“I think you have a husband and daughter waiting at home,” he cuts her off, turns on his heel, and walks towards the building’s entrance without looking back, so he doesn’t have to watch Gaby’s smile crumble into disappointment.

Someone hurries after him. To Illya’s relief, it’s not Gaby, but an agent Illya had never met before. She’d been hired after his imprisonment, as U.N.C.L.E. had continued to expand. Her name’s Agnieszka, she’d originally received her training while working for the Polish FB and was supposedly in charge of U.N.C.L.E.’s relations with the Warsaw Pact member states. At least that’s what she’d said when she’d introduced herself. Illya had privately asked himself what it said about her job performance when U.N.C.L.E. hadn’t been able to figure out that he was alive until the KGB thought fit to tell them.

Agnieszka takes it upon herself to explain the layout of the safe house and the procedures awaiting Illya the following morning in much greater detail than necessary.

“You can call it a day if you’d like,” he says because he’s exhausted and all he wants is to be left alone. “I was one of the very first agents at U.N.C.L.E. – those procedures you’re describing? I was there when we developed them.”

“Right. Of course, you were,” Agnieszka mumbles. “I guess, I’m going to leave you to it, now… uh, if you need anything… well, you’ve already said you know the procedures.”

She leaves quickly, as though she can’t wait to get away from Illya. It doesn’t surprise him; he’d probably made a bad impression on the entire U.N.C.L.E. delegation during the flight. But what did they expect him to do? Rejoice and be happy, as though he could just forget what happened these past few years?

He shakes his head and starts inspecting the safe house. If he peers out of the living room window, he can get a good view of the street down below.

Gaby is still standing there on the sidewalk, eying the building’s entrance as though she can’t quite believe Illya walked away just like that.

Agnieszka exits the building and joins Gaby on the sidewalk. The two women start talking. Agnieszka shakes her head and shrugs; Gaby’s shoulders start shaking. Illya’s too far away to know for sure, but he suspects she might be crying.

The last thing Illya sees is Agnieszka pulling Gaby into a hug before he steps back from the window, clenching his fists. He’s the cause of her anguish, he knows, and he’s not proud for having brushed her off, but he’s well aware he wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to take Gaby up on her offer. Not when so many things had changed. Not when she’s as happily married as she says she is.

Illya might have been able to handle it if their relationship just hadn’t worked out. If they’d discovered they weren’t as good of a fit as they’d initially assumed and Gaby decided she preferred Napoleon... No, Solo. “Napoleon” is too embarrassing, too intimate, evoking the memory of Siberian winter nights which he’d spent tormented by hunger, cold, and longing. It’s better, it’s safer to think of him as Solo.

If Gaby had simply ditched him for Solo, yes, it would have hurt, but Illya can’t very well fault Gaby for having the same weakness as him. It’s not as though it would have been the first time he’d been broken up with, either. He’s been through this before. One way or another, he’d have coped.

But to think that Gaby had been out there, at home, mourning him, raising their child?

Illya’s head starts aching.

He goes to the sink, splashes cold water on his face, and massages his temples in an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the headache. He takes a look at his watch to tell the time, but it’s off. He’d forgotten to change it according to the time zone. In any case, it’s dark outside. He turns on the light, fills a glass with water, and gulps it down, before taking another look at the photographs Gaby’s left him with.

He fights the irrational urge to throw out all the photos featuring Solo, as though that would solve anything. No, he needs to come to terms with reality as it is and think about it logically, even though that’s the last thing he wants to do.

Solo and Gaby are married.

Solo is the only father figure known to Illya’s daughter.

He doesn’t know Nadya, doesn’t have any connection to her besides the biological one, and perhaps he shouldn’t want to… He’s not getting anywhere like that; he’s just rehashing old discussions about parenthood he’s had with Gaby before. They’d talked about it often enough, following Udo Teller’s death. They’d both effectively lost their fathers when they’d still been children, but they’d lost them for different reasons. Udo Teller had jumped at the chance to work for the Americans following the war, seemingly content to forget about his daughter. Nikolay Kuryakin, on the other hand, wouldn’t have left his family if he’d had a choice. Escape from the camp would have been virtually impossible, and so Illya’s father had done the best he could, which was filling his letters with lies to reassure his wife and son.

To find out that his girlfriend and daughter are happy with someone else playing the role of husband and father figure hurts, but Illya is accustomed to living with hurt. Gaby had loved him, mourned him, moved on, and now she’s happily married. That’s got to be better than the lie he’d believed for four years, that U.N.C.L.E. had left him to rot somewhere in Siberia, that nobody cared whether Illya Kuryakin lived or died. 

When they met again, Gaby held him close and told him she’d had a breakdown when she’d found out what he’d been through these past few years. Wasn’t that proof that she still cared about Illya?

Why, then, did he just do his utmost to make Gaby miserable? Is it payback, a perverse form of revenge to make her feel a fraction of the anguish and contempt he’d fostered for four years, like a festering wound, that's always hurting and never heals? Something inside him screams that it’s unfair, that Gaby got her happily ever after, a picture-perfect small family unit, with no room left for Illya. If he tried to insert himself, everything would be thrown off balance, so it’s better to remove himself from the equation entirely.

On the other hand, doesn’t it put him on the same level as Gaby’s father, who’d left Gaby behind in East Berlin? The man after whose death Gaby had only managed a bitter “I lost him a long time ago”?

Shouldn’t Illya try to do better than Udo Teller? Who is he to selfishly decide to give way to Solo just like that, without even trying to learn how to be a father? It should be his duty to at least try to build a connection with Nadya, to signal that he’d be there, should she want him to have a place in her life. In the end, if Nadya grows up, learns to see all of Illya’s numerous flaws and failures, and decides she doesn’t need him, he’ll have to accept her decision. The crux of the matter is that Nadya would have a choice – unlike Udo Teller, Illya would only disappear from his daughter’s life if she told him to do so.

Gaby had given him an encouraging smile when he’d asked her whether he might be allowed to meet Nadya, she’d said she trusted him, so maybe…

Maybe he can still fix this. If he tries, could he seize the occasion and carve out a place for himself in the happy family in the photographs? There’s a phone installed in the living room, Illya had seen it when Agnieszka had first shown him around the safe house. Does Gaby still have the same phone number she had four years ago, the number Illya had memorized and could probably dial just by muscle memory if he tried?

Should he…

He messed up and hurt Gaby, he knows that. The logical next step would be to apologize, ideally as quickly as possible, to save what can be saved. 

Decisively, before his courage leaves him, Illya picks up the receiver and starts dialing the number. If Gaby’s gotten a new phone number in the meantime, and someone else answers the phone, he’ll just excuse himself and say that he must have dialed the wrong number. Nothing suspicious about that. Happens every day…

But what if it’s the right number and Gaby doesn’t answer the phone? What if it’s Solo? How is Illya supposed to explain himself, then?

Gaby might have said that Solo trusted Illya not to do anything that would hurt Nadya, but that was _before_ … how is he going to believe that Illya means Nadya no harm when he’d already hurt Gaby?

Illya pauses, and after a few seconds of deliberation, he hangs up. Right now, Solo is probably doing his best to comfort Gaby, undermining any remaining affection she might have harbored for Illya and confirming that she’d made the right choice when she married Solo. Wouldn’t the two of them consider it as an affront if Illya called them right now, offering paltry words of apology? Then again, if he waits, it’ll just make it worse, won’t it?

He keeps staring at the phone, thinking about the photographs of the happy family, the family he’d love to be a part of in his unrealistic, childish fantasies, and he can’t decide what he’s supposed to do. Reach out to Gaby and Solo? Give them time?

He can’t seem to make up his mind and feels the old, familiar anger well up, threatening to reach the boiling point. Usually, he would have blown off steam during his shift in the forest, where the ax had become the instrument of his rage and the trees had come to symbolize whoever he happened to be angry with that day. But he’s no longer in the forest, he doesn’t have an ax and the only one he’s angry with is himself.

Suddenly, Udo Teller’s decision to leave his daughter behind doesn’t seem so incomprehensible any more. Perhaps he just wanted Gaby to have an untainted childhood, the chance to live unburdened by all the baggage being his daughter would have entailed. A blank slate, a fresh start… as a general rule, children can’t choose their parents, but if Illya puts himself in Nadya’s shoes... If he had to choose who he’d rather want as a father: the handsome American with the easy smile or the sullen Russian with the anger issues?

The choice is obvious.

Illya doesn’t pick up the phone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'm curious to know what you think about this chapter <3


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys :) As always, thanks to each and every one of you who left a comment and/or kudos on the last chapter <333

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1968**

In the past few weeks, their dynamic as a couple has changed. Gaby can no longer ignore that their marriage is a fragile thing, perched precariously on the edge. To make it lose its equilibrium, the tiniest tremors would suffice. If she brought it up in conversation with Napoleon, she’s afraid it could all come crashing down around her much sooner than she’d like. Napoleon has brought up divorce more than once, all while Illya has been resolutely avoiding her.

It’s stupid and pointless, to mourn after a woman she can barely remember, but in moments in which the anxiety threatens to take over, she wishes she could talk to her mother and ask for her advice. The closest thing to a mother Gaby ever had is Gretl Schmidt, her foster mother, but there's never been any love lost between them. Gaby had always gotten along much better with Fritz, her foster father who’d taught her all there was to know about cars and gladly let her experiment in his workshop, even though his wife insisted it was not proper for a girl. After her escape from East Berlin, Gaby had written Gretl a letter, explaining herself to the best of her abilities without revealing her involvement with MI6 and U.N.C.L.E. She’d gotten a clipped reply in which her foster mother asked Gaby to never contact her again. In her eyes, Gaby was no better than your standard _Republikflüchtling_ and she didn’t want to have anything to do with that.

And so, Gaby longs for the only other mother figure she has left, the mother she only got to know through yellowed photographs and stories told by Uncle Rudy on his infrequent visits to East Berlin. In Gaby’s mind, Luise Teller is a surreal, intangible character and thus perfectly malleable. Gaby has no idea whether she would have even gotten along with her mother if she’d been the one to raise her. But if her mother were still alive today, perhaps she’d comfort her, and then they’d laugh about Gaby’s terrible taste in men, her penchant for partners who wouldn’t stick around.

However, it’s entirely possible that Luise Teller, née von Trulsch was more like her brother than her daughter would like to believe. She probably would have sneered and scrunched up her nose at Gaby’s choices. _“Zuerst nimmst du ausgerechnet einen Russen und dann noch einen Ami obendrauf? Hättest du dir keinen anständigen deutschen Mann aussuchen können?“_

With a start, Gaby realizes the chimeric invention of her biological mother has started sounding a lot like Gretl Schmidt. Her foster mother had always wanted Gaby to look for a husband, “a decent German man”. These days, Gaby finds herself wondering why she hadn’t followed Gretl’s advice. Why hadn’t she just found a husband in East Berlin and settled down?

If she had, none of this would have happened. Perhaps she’d even be happy. She’d be married, all the same, she’d have a few children and she’d probably be working in a state-owned enterprise. In the early morning, she’d drop off her kids at the state-owned crèche, in the evening, she’d pick them up again, cook them dinner, and at night she’d lie in her decent German husband’s arms, dreaming of summer vacations spent at a state-owned hotel at the Baltic Sea. A normal life. A quiet life. A life free from spies and secrets.

But Gaby couldn’t fight the urge to want more than what she had, to dream of excitement and adventure. She never managed to stick it out with any of the men she dated, even as all her friends and acquaintances were getting married and started having children.

She could have led a quiet life. If she’d only turned down Alexander Waverly when he came knocking on her door. If she’d said no… but the prospect of becoming an agent for MI6 had sounded too exciting, had given her an intoxicating, irresistible taste of the great wide world. It set her apart from the others, made her special, even though she obviously couldn’t talk about it with anyone at the time.

If only she hadn’t—

No, a quiet life had never been an option. She’d been bound to get tangled up with secret services, not because of any of her personal choices, but for being her father’s daughter 

Had it all been worth it?

Night after sleepless night, Gaby lies awake next to her husband – not German, hardly decent, but a man all right – wondering whether this might be the last time, whether he might already be gone tomorrow morning. How many others has he put in a similar situation throughout his life? How many others has he cast off? For a while, she’d labored under the delusion that, with her, it might be different, that she might be the one who—

She hasn’t been sleeping much lately; her tattered nerves can’t take it anymore. The tears are there before she can even make a token effort at holding them back. The last time she’d been crying so much had been the first few months after Nadya’s birth.

Napoleon, to his credit, notices and wraps his arms around her. She’s grateful for that paltry offering of affection and clings close to him, careful not to jostle his still-healing knee, hiding her face in the spot where his neck meets his shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks quietly.

“No,” Gaby croaks.

“That’s okay,” Napoleon replies. “But if you change your mind, just let me know, alright?”

Even if Gaby wanted to talk, she doesn’t know what she’d start with. Her thoughts are all tangled all up in her head and no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn’t be able to unravel them, line them up in the correct order, and put them into words, form sentences that make sense. Before, when things had still been alright, Napoleon used to say that he’d always be there for Gaby if she needed him. It hasn’t escaped her notice that he hasn’t repeated the reassurance in a while.

A question comes to her mind, the one question she could ask to cut through all the confusion and establish clarity. But as she ponders the question, she supposes living with uncertainty is better than hearing Napoleon’s honest answer. She’s just going to wait it out. Wait it out in what will surely become the last days of a short-lived marriage, just as Napoleon, too, bides his time, waiting for the right moment to leave.

Illya had chosen to leave, but in the form of Nadya, Gaby at least has a connection to him. If Napoleon is planning on leaving, too, maybe she could…

A shiver runs through her as she realizes the full scope of the idea she’d just had. How could she even think about having another child when she’s already constantly failing Nadya? What will her daughter think of Gaby, once she’s old enough to understand the full scope of the situation, once she understands her fatherlessness is her mother’s fault? Her biological father wants nothing to do with her because her mother had gotten married to her adoptive father and then, as her crowning achievement, her mother hadn’t even managed to make her adoptive father stay.

No matter how hard Gaby tries, she can’t seem to reach the one goal she’d set for herself: that she’d give her daughter a better childhood than she had, a childhood spent in a peaceful country with an intact, loving family.

If she’d had the chance to do it all over again… If she’d known Illya had been alive all along, waiting in vain for a letter, a postcard, any message at all to show his girlfriend hadn’t forgotten about him, she’d have done everything in her power to keep herself from falling for Napoleon. But she hadn’t known and one by one, the defenses around Gaby’s heart had started to crumble. They were a good fit. Weren’t they? What was the use of cycling through stale lies like “We’ll forget all about it” or “It won’t happen again” or “Maybe just one more time” until they sounded like addicts deluding themselves about the true nature of their dependency? It was easier to give in and finally accept it. So, they made it official, Gaby shed her German-war-criminal surname and gave her daughter a father.

Only a few months later, when Napoleon got shot and spent weeks at the hospital, Gaby realized that getting married hadn’t made the brittle construct she called “family” any more stable than before. If the mission had gone a bit differently, if Napoleon had been a little less lucky, he wouldn’t have returned at all, and Gaby would have gotten another call from Alexander in the middle of the night which started with “Something has happened and you need to be strong now.” Déjà-vu, déjà-vécu.

Just as she’s failing Nadya, she’s failed Illya. She hadn’t figured out the KGB had been lying, hadn’t figured out Illya was alive, and hadn’t done anything to free him from the labor camp he’d been at. Not only that, she’s failing Napoleon too, isn’t she? After all, she’s never quite managed to forget Illya. She loves her husband, yes, but if Illya hadn’t disappeared, things would be different. 

She goes over her memories of the past few years, exchanges Napoleon for Illya, and imagines family life with the man she’d been meant to be with, not with the one who’d eventually ended up as her husband. She recalls the easy way Illya had smiled at her after he’d first seen a photograph of Nadya, the earnest nervousness in his voice when he’d asked whether he could meet his daughter. Perhaps there’s a way to fix this if she only puts in enough effort – and it’s the right thing to do for Nadya, isn’t it? Who’s Gaby to deprive her of a relationship with her father? It’s her duty to try as hard as she possibly can to make sure Nadya can have a meaningful connection to Illya.

Supposing Napoleon is right and Illya only has a problem with him and not with Gaby… first of all, she needs to accept that she was always bound to lose Napoleon sooner or later. It’s just not in his nature to let himself be tied down for too long, his frequent mentions of divorce are proof enough. She’s going to lose Napoleon, yes, but that might mean Illya starts talking to her again. And if they start talking again, who knows what else might happen?

Maybe it won’t be so bad, she thinks, as she wipes away her tears with the back of her hand. Maybe she won’t be failing her daughter, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, knowing the speed at which I work, this was the last update of 2020. I just want to thank each and every one of you who's given this story a chance <3 Initially, this started out as a one-shot but after I'd gotten comments in which readers encouraged me to write more, I started thinking about ways to expand this story into a multi-chapter fic. I can safely say I never thought I'd one day be sitting here, writing end notes for chapter 19 ;) This story's grown into so much more than I ever thought it would at the beginning. Each new chapter is a process of discovery for me and, with each new chapter, I'm getting to know these characters better, too. I want to say "Thank You" to everyone who's chosen to accompany me on this process of discovery and I hope this story brings you just as much delight as it brings to me <3333
> 
> See you in 2021! <333333333333
> 
> Love,
> 
> Annette


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, thanks for the feedback on the previous chapter <3 If you've celebrated any particular holidays, I hope you've had a good time <333

**Somewhere in the United States of America, 1968**

In the past few weeks, Illya has tried hard to get “settled in”. He’s applied for all the required documents and has started looking for apartments, so he won’t have to depend on U.N.C.L.E.’s charity for longer than necessary. Today, he’s asked Waverly to meet with him first thing in the morning, to talk about the possibility of returning to active service as soon as the investigations into his unjust imprisonment have been concluded.

Waverly, however, isn’t nearly as enthusiastic about the prospect as Illya. He only raises an eyebrow. In the past four years, Waverly’s aged a lot and has acquired a look of perpetual weariness. Then again, who is Illya to judge? He’s reached the ripe old age of thirty-seven, but he, too, has the washed out, worn-out look of someone much older.

“I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, this request comes as a surprise,” Waverly says. “Are you _sure_ you want to be reinstated as an operative, Mr. Kuryakin?”

Illya narrows his eyes. _Mr. Kuryakin_ is a rhetorical demotion, a step down from _Agent Kuryakin_ . As though Illya needed another reminder that he’s out of the loop: the war in Vietnam has escalated, there are tanks in the streets of Prague, and a cultural revolution in China, just to name a few pieces of evidence, proving Illya’s returned to a different world than the one he remembers. Still, _Mr. Kuryakin_ might be a demotion, but it is leagues better than _526813_ , the number which had served as his name for the past few years.

“There’s not much else I can do, is there?” Illya counters. “Being an operative is all I know.”

Waverly furrows his brows. “Mr. Kuryakin, I don’t think you’re in any condition to resume fieldwork right now.”

Illya bristles at the statement and clenches his jaw. “Give me a few months and I’ll be caught up on current politics,” he says in a strained voice. “I’ve already started working out again, too. I’ll gain my strength back in no time.”

It’s a bold statement and quite possibly an overly optimistic prognosis, but Waverly doesn’t have to know that. Truth be told, the first time Illya had tried working out after his release, he found out he couldn’t lift nearly as heavy or run nearly as fast as he could before his imprisonment. It had been an exercise in humiliation and had ended with Illya vomiting up his breakfast.

“I was actually alluding to your mental state, Mr. Kuryakin.”

“What about it? I spoke to Tamira, the psychologist, just like you asked.”

“And do you think it helped?”

“She suggested I write a report about my experiences at the camp.” Illya shrugs. “I did as she said, wrote the report, and handed it in.”

“About your report… it wasn’t quite what we expected.”

“Why?” Illya asks, baffled. “I wrote about everything I could remember, every little detail! The command structures amongst the guards, the security measures, the logistics, average life expectancy amongst the prisoners… it’s all there! What more do you want?”

“As I said, it wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind. We thought it might be beneficial if you wrote about your feelings to process the experience, so to speak.”

Illya huffs. “I fail to see why’d you need a report about my feelings on the matter.”

If anyone’s been through what Illya’s been through, there’s no need to try to put it into words. They’d implicitly understand each other, anyway. And if the other person hasn’t gone through a similar experience, then nothing Illya could say or do would make them understand it. What had he said to Gaby when she’d asked? _It was bad_. Now, isn’t that enough? Doesn’t that suffice as far as descriptions go? Why would anyone want to know the ugly, useless details of his suffering? So they can pity him? Illya doesn’t want anyone’s pity, doesn’t want to be treated as though he’s fragile. He’s survived this long, hasn’t he? Isn’t that a testament to his tenacity and toughness?

“Mr. Kuryakin, I’m insistent on this point because we’ve received some concerning reports. I think there are some issues you might have to work through before we can discuss your reinstatement as an agent in active service again.”

“’Issues’,” Illya repeats incredulously. “You want me to work through ‘issues’?” Doesn’t Waverly have issues, too, and yet nobody ever suggested they render him unfit to run U.N.C.L.E.? Illya has never once mentioned alcohol or opium in Waverly’s company – so why won’t Waverly be similarly considerate with him? “And who provided you with those ‘concerning reports’ in the first place?”

“The KGB.”

“The KGB? Let me take a look before we talk about any supposed issues of mine. They kept you in the dark for four years. Why would they tell you the truth about me now?”

Waverly wordlessly hands Illya a file.

Illya opens it and starts reading the document. Throughout his career, Illya has handed in countless reports like this one. It very much reads like a standard report written by just another cog in the machine. However, there’s nothing that would make him doubt his mental state, nothing that had distinguished him in any negative way from the other prisoners. At least until he gets to the last section: _While we could not detect a substantial change in his political attitude, in his present state 526813 does not seem to pose a risk. He appears to be remarkably apathetic and has in the past obsessively talked to people only he could see, including but not restricted to historical figures, suggesting he suffers from severe delusions._

“So that’s what you meant with my mental state?” Illya asks. “I can assure you, I’m certainly not delusional. This is just a very clumsy attempt to discredit me and that’s all there is to it,” he adds, resorting to a white lie so he won’t have to talk about how everyone got so desperate, they eventually reached a point where they started playing out imagined conversations with their distant loved ones.

“If you say so, Mr. Kuryakin,” Waverly replies but doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“The KGB has lied to you before,” Illya insists.

“I’ll have to take your word for it, I suppose.” Waverly gives the file a last critical look, before closing it. “If you really want to be reinstated as an operative, getting back into a work-out routine and catching up on current politics will surely be beneficial. But for the sake of a good working atmosphere around here, I suggest you try to solve your issues with Mr. and Mrs. Solo, too, before we can talk about clearing you for fieldwork. How does that sound?”

Like blackmail, that’s what it sounds like. How is Illya supposed to explain that he’s already made his decision? He’ll stay far away from his ex-girlfriend, his daughter, and his… he doesn’t know what exactly Solo is to him. “Former friend”, perhaps, but that doesn’t quite cut it. Not that Illya would ever admit that out loud. _Including but not restricted to historical figures_ \- he needs to be even more careful, now, after it’s become clear that at least some vestiges of his embarrassing weakness have made it into an official KGB report.

However, there won’t be any problems with either Mr. or Mrs. Solo if Illya never has to interact with them. If Waverly ever takes him back as a spy, maybe there’s a long-term, deep cover assignment Illya could apply for, so he wouldn’t even be tempted to get involved and wreak havoc on Nadya’s life. Soon enough, Waverly will see reason, too.

For now, Illya just gives Waverly a short, jerky nod and bids him goodbye. _Solve your issues with Mr. and Mrs. Solo_ , Illya thinks. What was that charming expression with the carrot and the stick? That’s exactly what Waverly is trying to do to him – dangling a job over Illya’s head and expecting him to do as he’s told. Well, Illya won’t let himself be manipulated like that. He’s been to hell and back for U.N.C.L.E., why won’t Waverly honor that sacrifice? Illya has made his dilemma quite clear: He only knows how to be an agent. If Waverly takes that away from him, what will he have left? Nothing. He’d be a man with no prospects, bearing a twice-disgraced name, rejected by the country he’d believed in, rejected by the woman he loves, and rejected by the organization he’s served. Has it all been for nothing in the end?

Distracted, Illya leaves Waverly’s office, intending to return to his own office on the second floor. Caught up in his thoughts as he is, he doesn’t pay enough attention to where exactly it is that he’s going. He hasn’t gotten the floor plan down cold yet, but he used to think he knew all the areas he needed to avoid. The fifth floor, where Gaby shares an office with Agnieszka, the third floor, where Solo’s office is located, and the canteen, so he won’t risk running into either of them at lunchtime. He never considered he might have to avoid passing by the company crèche just as resolutely as he’s avoided the other areas. Just as Illya turns a corner he hears: “It’s just a check-up to make sure it’s all healing properly, I won’t have to stay overnight this time. I’ll be back to pick you up in the evening, I promise.”

Illya stops dead in his tracks. He thought he’d forgotten the sound of that voice, forgotten it along with so many other memories as hunger, cold, and exhaustion had eaten away at his sanity. But it seems Illya hasn’t truly forgotten, no, he’d just buried the memory under layers and layers of shame and denial.

The voice is terribly familiar.

If Solo had spoken just a moment earlier, Illya would have stopped in time, beaten a hasty retreat, and gone a long way round to get to his office. Anything to avoid running into Solo, but now Illya is standing there, frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do after he’s obviously intruded in what looks like a private moment.

Solo’s in a kneeling position so he’s eye to eye with—

Nadya is wearing a blue dress with a flowery pattern and a matching bow in her blond hair. The dress brings out the color of Nadya’s eyes, and Illya is struck by how familiar they are, even as Nadya doesn’t pay him any mind beyond a cursory look. And why should she? For all intents and purposes, Illya is a perfect stranger. A perfect stranger who just happens to have the exact same eye color as her, but she’s blessedly unaware of the significance.

Even as Illya’s intrusion leaves Nadya cold, the same cannot be said for Solo. He’s seen the photographs, of course, but being face to face with him is different. Solo’s a bit thinner than Illya remembers, he’s acquired a few gray hairs and a few more lines on his face, but he’s still as handsome as ever. That very same handsome face is now displaying signs of embarrassment; a first for Illya, who’s never seen Solo embarrassed before.

“Peril,” Solo mumbles, invoking the old, familiar nickname, which is now caught somewhere between unintentional travesty and outright mockery. _Not very perilous now, am I_ , Illya thinks. 

“I didn’t know you’d…,” Solo continues and tries to stand up with obvious difficulties. His right hand’s gripping a cane for dear life, so tight his knuckles are white – an injury? Possibly related to the check-up he’d told Nadya about? Illya hadn’t seen a cane on any of the photographs Gaby had given him, but it looks like a debilitating condition. Solo’s face is contorted with pain as he’s struggling to stand up and before Illya realizes what he’s doing, he’s already crossed the distance between them and taken Solo’s free hand to help him up.

Once Illya’s thoughts catch up with his actions, he immediately drops Solo’s hand as though he’s been burned and takes a few steps back to re-establish distance.

Solo looks up at him with wide eyes, as though he’s not quite sure what just happened. “Uh... thanks, Peril?”

“You’re welcome,” Illya replies uncertainly. “Napoleon, I—”

Solo furrows his brows and Illya instantly berates himself for slipping up. They might have been on a nickname basis, but they’d never actually used each other’s first names. It’s _wrong_ , too intimate, and too revealing… what is Solo going to _think_? Illya’s tongue-tied and doesn’t know what he’d say to Solo that could steer the conversation away from wives, daughters, and winter night fantasies in a Siberian prison.

Unwittingly, it’s Nadya who saves her father from further ridicule. She reaches up to tug at Solo’s hand, lets out a long-drawn-out “D _aaa_ d-d _yyy_!” to get his attention, and breaks the spell, unintentionally highlighting the grotesque role reversal. Illya should have been the one Nadya calls her father, Illya should have been the one she trusts – but he’s not and all he manages to do is stand there uselessly, as an eternal outsider unable to recross the invisible divide separating him from Solo and Nadya.

“Daddy, who’s that man?”

If Nadya were to get an honest answer to her question… Illya realizes the full scope of what has just happened. By virtue of this short interaction, he’s handed Nadya a quite substantial puzzle piece she’ll one day be able to use when she tries to gather information about her biological father. This particular piece of the puzzle, however, is not a harmless photograph from Illya’s glory days, nor a heavily whitewashed anecdote told by her parents. No, this one’s a fragment of the real thing, all warped colors and jagged edges, promising nothing but disappointment if she were to dig deeper.

Before Nadya might have to come to terms with certain facts she’s much too young to fully understand and before Illya’s presence can inflict more damage, Illya turns on his heel and flees the scene.

Once he gets to his office, his heart is pounding and he unsuccessfully tries to make himself believe he wasn’t tempted to turn around when he heard Solo called out: “Illya, come back, please!”

* * *

After her lunch break, Gaby finds a thick envelope on her desk, addressed to “Gabriella Solo” in what is unmistakably Illya’s handwriting. Inside the envelope, she finds the stack of photographs she’d given him during the plane ride to gently introduce him to Nadya. A small piece of paper falls out, too, on which Illya had written: “Thank you”.

Thoroughly confused and unsure what to make of the gesture, Gaby doesn’t notice the photograph which shows Nadya opening Christmas presents with Napoleon is missing from the stack.

**Author's Note:**

> As you will have undoubtedly noticed, English is not my first language. Should you have come across any mistakes, feel free to point them out to me!
> 
> And if you've liked this fic, please consider leaving a comment and/or kudos! I really appreciate it! <3


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